Interview with Non-Humans and Saint Chaos Creator Noah Dorsey

Noah Dorsey is a writer who's all too familiar with the comic book world. He was the co-creator of Non-Humans and has a new title coming out known as Saint Chaos. To get more insight into the new title and some of Dorsey's other works from the past and future, check out my interview with him below. You have a part in the Non-Humans mini-series alongside Glen Brunswick and Whilce Portacio. How do you contribute to the mini-series? I co-created the series with Glen and Whilce. I had brought the original idea to Glen and we began to flesh out the world. Once Whilce got involved he brought his own ideas to the story and began designing these fantastic characters and developing the unique look of the world. Glen and I developed the initial story arc for the first four issues and we'll trade the scripts back and forth and give input. What has it been like working with Brunswick and Portacio? Amazing. Two creative forces with a limitless amount of talent. I owe Glen everything as far as being involved in the industry. He has been an outstanding role model with an endless amount of patience. For years I would nag him with questions about the comic industry and he never once showed a hint of annoyance when answering every one. The lushness of the world would not have happened without Whilce. He had taken a story that Glen and I developed and took it to an entirely different level. Can you tell us a bit about your latest project, Saint Chaos? I've actually been finishing up the scripts for the first four issues and the story has become something big. An urban epic. And these initial issues are just his origin story. How he meets his destiny as a chaotic force of justice in a city that is beyond corruption. Simon Monroe (who becomes Saint Chaos) is ready to die. His life has hit rock bottom and then his mother is murdered. He decides that he has absolutely nothing to live for and wants to check out. He just doesn't have the guts to do it himself. That's where Honeycomb comes in. He is just the murderous psychopath for the job and he is more than willing to do it. But the madman has demands - he wants to kill Simon in four days. On Honeycomb's birthday. The last thing Simon wants to do is wait, but he doesn't have a choice. In the next four days he decides to do a little good. Since his life is going to end anyway, why not help people in life endangering situations? If he dies, who cares? The only person he'll upset is a psycho that wants Simon's death to be his birthday present. But once he begins his heroic acts he stumbles upon a clue that could lead to the person that murdered his mother. He needs time to follow the lead, but Honeycomb has no intention of releasing him from his Death Day. What inspired the story of Saint Chaos? I was going through a particularly tough time in my life and, as most writer's minds tend to do, I thought about the extreme. Not so far as I ever contemplated suicide, but I wondered what it would be like for a person to be so far lost in life that they didn't care about it anymore. What if this person had a certain amount of days to live? What would he or she do? The first thought that occurred to me was that they would try to do as much good as they could without any consideration of their life. The story just kind of organically grew from there. How would you describe the artwork of Saint Chaos? How did you get in touch with the artist to do the comic? Brutally beautiful with a gothic noir theme. It is not like anything I've seen in comics before. In fact, his style is the reason Saint Chaos took off so quickly. I was looking for an artist on another project and, after interviewing a few, I got connected with one. Zsombor Huszka (who is the artist) contacted me about the same project. I asked to see his portfolio and I was floored by his work. I told him that I had already gotten someone, but would love to work with him in the future. That's when he asked if I had anything in mind. At the time I wasn't planning on touching Saint Chaos until the end of this year, but I decided to tell him about it anyway. He loved the idea. Soon after that I was writing, he was drawing, and out popped the first issue. What other comic book projects have you worked on? I got extremely lucky. The first comic I have ever worked on got published right out of the gate. I was just lucky enough to be paired with Glen who loved the idea enough to develop it and have it as his next project at Image. Do you have any other comic books planned for the future? Oh yeah. I've been working on a book called Soldiers of Sin with a talented artist out of Austin. He has developed a way of creating these 3D characters and the world around them and then painting on top. It really looks cool. We are still developing that process. There is a mystery comic and a horror comic that we want to do, but I want to really take advantage of the digital platform with those. Madefire and Ryan Woodward's Bottom of the Ninth (both apps that can be downloaded for free and I highly recommend) are making some great strides as to what a digital comic can do, but I'm aiming higher. I want the reader to be part of the mystery. They can have the option to be fully engaged and cannot progress in the story until they unravel all the clues or they can just choose to just read the story. The same with the horror story, but with unexpected scares. I've got some great ideas for both, we just have to develop the technology first. I still want to make traditional comics as well. I've got a great western story set in a brothel, sort of reminiscent of Deadwood (of which I'm a HUGE fan), that may follow Saint Chaos. What inspired you to become a writer? I would like to say that it was when I was a kid and I always wanted to be a writer, but I was more into drawing and painting. Fine art kind of stuff. I had always had a knack for storytelling, but it never really struck me as a career path until I got into college and met a good friend of mine named Will Wernick. We were both really into movies so he decided to buy and camera and some editing equipment. He became the director/editor and I took on the role as screenwriter/actor. We made a few films (there are still a few on youtube I believe) and I loved it. That's when I realized that I wanted to be a writer. Writing a screenplay is exactly like writing a script for a comic book. Except when I'm writing a comic book I feel like I'm the writer/director/actor/editor. I'm writing the story, choosing the shots, creating the personalities of the characters as they interact with the world around them, and I'm making sure it is as tight as possible. Zsombor is the cinematographer (and sometimes even co-director) as he takes my shots and illustrates them to look better than I picture them in my head. What inspirational words would you give to someone interested in becoming a writer? Don't wait. Can you explain some of the stuff readers can find on your wordpress (http://noahalexanderdorsey.wordpress.com/)? The blog is kind of on a brief hiatus. I've been swamped with so many other things right now that I'm ashamed to admit that I've ignored it. I actually haven't visited it in awhile, but I think there are posts that highlight the Soldiers of Sin comic and the 3D process we are using to create it, some character sketches from the same comic, and maybe a short story or two. We are currently developing a website that we're hoping goes online soon that will more than likely replace the blog entirely. I'll definitely be posting updates on Twitter: @thenoahdorsey. Thank you for your time! For readers out there who are interested in a unique story, be sure to check out Noah Dorsey's work.