Exclusive interview with Daniel Quantz and R.J. Ryan

Daniel Quantz and RJ Ryan

RJ Ryan was working for West Coast Writers  when he recruited Daniel Quantz to script the first six issues of Marvel Age-Spider Man. Their collaboration in this Marvel project further expanded their interest in remaining a unit! So they teamed up along with David Marquez and Blake Leibel to develop, polish, and publish: SYNDROME: a graphic novel that transforms and broadens a theory according to Dr. Wolfe, a character in the novel driven by the true nature of serial killers. Is the killing behavior pattern already an instinct  traced by the human brain? You'll have to read the novel to find out!



Art by David Marquez





1. How did both of you, such talented gentlemen, discover that you could do so much more professionally and artistically together than just collaborating for Marvel Age-Spider Man?

Daniel Quantz:  We’ve been friends for a long time and share a certain sensibility so we knew that we’d work well together.  I think we realized we could be more productive together than individually.  Plus we found that the stuff we were writing had a quality that neither of us could come up with alone and that was fun.

RJ Ryan: That's really nice of you to say. We've written and sold other stuff together but SYNDROME was something of a leap of faith for us, spending a year writing something that is a genuine departure from the kind of stories you typically see in mainstream comics. The big bet we made with SYNDROME is that readers would be interested in a story that questions the nature of evil as opposed to taking it for granted. That's the big idea we brought to the table and I fell fairly happy with the way we were able to execute it. I should say that the book would really suck without the amazing work our artist David Marquez did. You can find him at www.davidmarquez.com, and he was really someone we talked to almost every single day for a year as we put the book together and he is as much an author of the piece as we are.



Concept Art: Karen and Wolfe

2. How was the character of Wolfe of SYNDROME born?  Was he inspired by someone else?

Daniel Quantz: Once we came up with the idea of the facility and this wild over-the-top experiment he’d be conducting, then we had to consider what type of person would do something like this, and that filled the character in with his psychology and personality.
RJ Ryan: We've said before in interviews that we looked at a lot of real life giants of psychiatry and psychology and the physical sciences to arrive at how we portray Wolfe. We loved the archetype of a classical mad scientist but because our story is rooted in a lot of real life research into psychiatry the treatment of sociopathy, Wolfe had to be a lot more than just a Frankestein knock-off, and his behavior in the story had to be strongly and believably motivated. What we came up with was that what he perceives as his own failures as a psychiatrist early in his career took a real human toll -- people died on his watch. This part of the story makes for some of the darkest and most violent moments of the book, but they were essential to make the story click.

3. Can you tell us what is the base or foundation of the illustration used for the cover of the novel? Who helped you in the design and why one like that in particular?
Daniel Quantz:  We had the idea of doing a photo cover as a way of trying to merchandise the book more like a "regular" novel than a graphic novel. We needed an image that leaped off the shelf. A good friend of ours, Michael Dahan, is a tremendously talented photographer and we enlisted his help in coming up with the concept and then let him do his thing in the execution.

RJ Ryan: You kind find more of Michael's work at his website, www.studiodahan.com. He is a brilliant guy with a strong design vision that I think goes far beyond what you typically see on comic book covers. Everyone involved with this book knew doing a cover like that was going to be risky, not to mention expensive. But the overwhelming reaction to it was incredibly positive, especially when we debuted the book in San Diego Comic-Con this past summer, and it's continued as we've gotten the book into stores this fall. Almost every time we talk to someone about the book, the subject of the cover comes up and we're really proud of it, as well as the design work our partners at Archaia and Fantasy Prone did to pull it off.

4. What is next for RJ Ryan and Daniel Quantz?

Daniel Quantz:  I’m writing another comic now which has not yet been announced.  The two of us will probably work together again sometime in the future, but for now we’re both taking the time after SYNDROME to explore other projects we’ve been sitting on.

RJ Ryan: We both love the format of SYNDROME: the longform, serious comic book story cued to a more mature readership, and hopefully something that can be re-read a couple of times and really enjoyed on a deeper level than, say, a $2.99 comic book about super-heroes. We both intend to work in that space again, as soon as we can. But the big challenge, of course, is that producing a thick, substantial graphic novel can take almost two years, especially when you're like us and like to be very detail oriented about the artwork and presentation. It should go without saying that both of us are very excited about working with our publisher Archaia (www.archaia.com) again. I love that they see comic books as more than the rather limited superhero genre; they love to tell all kinds of stories, and make beautiful books, and I think that gives them an edge in the marketplace.



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