Daniel José Older's November Newsletter

NOVEMBER IS A NEW BEGINNING

Hey, welcome back to the newsletter! It’s November, which means my run of The High Republic Adventures is officially about to begin! To celebrate, this post features an interview with our series artist, Toni Bruno, and some of his previously unreleased official concept art. But first, some updates and housekeeping!

Things look a bit different here than they did last month. That’s because you’re receiving this month’s newsletter through Substack, which allows me to create a home for these posts and foster a more interactive community with the comments area. You can also read each month’s newsletter after it’s sent out in the archive section — check it out here!

One of the reasons I'm jumping onto Substack is because all week we've been watching Twitter go gradually down in flames. Who knows what'll happen? I'm still on there right now, but a lot of folks are leaving and I want to make sure there's a centralized site I can update with thoughts and things I have going on. You can also find me on IG, Tumblr, and Tik Tok although I'm not sure which I'll be on the most yet. I'm intrigued by this Project Mushroom site, too, so we'll see how that one goes when it launches.

This month my website will be under some construction because I’ll be setting up an online shop! The idea behind my store is to create a more personal, sustainable way for you guys to find my work and get autographed copies. I’ll have a limited amount of signed books and comics, but when the shop launches, YOU will be first to know! Make sure you stay subscribed to this newsletter and share it with your friends who may also enjoy getting updates from me. There will be an option for monster and dinosaur drawings!

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

This week I’ll be heading to Charleston, SC for Yallfest Book Festival! You can find me on Saturday at 11am in the American Theater talking about the craft of revision. I’ll be signing at the tent immediately after, and then making my way over to the Charleston Music Hall for a panel called The Mundane, The Magical And The Monstrous: Writing The Extra And The Ordinary.

THE HIGH REPUBLIC ADVENTURES (ROUND TWO!)

As you may be aware, I am a lead story architect and writer for STAR WARS: THE HIGH REPUBLIC, and we are now in the midst of Phase II of this overarching era of the Star Wars Canon. My all ages comic series The High Republic Adventures is back for this phase on the 30th! This time around I’m writing the story of Sav Malagán in her (rebellious, chaotic, pirate infused) teenage years as a Padawan! This story has been a lot of fun to write, in part because of how different it is from the Star Hopper crew’s journey in Phase I, in part because I always love writing about pirates… I’m thrilled to be working with masterful artist Toni Bruno again on this project. Here’s a sneak peek at some of Toni’s concept art, as well as an exclusive interview…

(also, if you love concept art as much as I do, be sure to grab Kristin Baver’s new book THE ART OF THE HIGH REPUBLIC for tons of behind the scenes insight and gorgeous illustrations.)

AN INTERVIEW WITH TONI BRUNO

DJO: Welcome, Toni, and thank you so much for doing this!

To start out, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your art and how you ended up drawing Star Wars comics. Your origin story! 

BRUNO: Like many I have been drawing since I was a boy. I started in Catania, Sicily, at school desks filling my school books of sketches, and in time I realized that I could also tell stories with that. 

Then I moved to Rome, where I continued through collaborations with magazines and publishing houses. Over time I sharpened my writing skills, as well as my drawing skills, and today I work as both scriptwriter and illustrator.

 

I have published several graphic novels, the last two being Da quassù la terra è bellissima, which tells the story of cosmonaut Akim Smirnov, and another in two volumes (Il Canto Delle Sirene, and La Melodia Dei Ghiacci) about the adventures of La Belgica, a ship that while exploring Antarctica stuck in the ice and whose crew had to struggle a lot to survive.

I have also collaborated with Italian serial comics, such as Dylan Dog, for which I am also working on an issue with my own story and drawings. 

In 2021 I was contacted to illustrate issues set in Takodana of the series Star Wars - The High Republic Adventures,  and I could only accept with great enthusiasm. Being able to imagine the Star Wars universe is the dream of every boy who wants to be a comic artist. And that's where we met, Daniel!

DJO: That's great, Toni! I'm so happy you're on board for Phase II to explore deeper into the Takodana story we started in Phase I, and we get more Maz and Sav, two of my favorite characters to write. One really fun thing about this era is we get to have Maz Kanata in a whole new look. For my part, I requested she have a more audacious, epic vibe to her outfit. Can you tell us about how you landed on this look for her? Because you nailed [it] on the first shot.

 

BRUNO: I am very happy to be back on board too, with a crew like Maz's then! Star Wars is such a complex universe that it is dizzying just to think about approaching it. Stories that have been transmitted through generations, populations each with a millennia of history of their own. In developing a character design, it is not possible to ignore the cultural history that has preceded and determined it. In the case of Maz Kanata this meant looking at the taste, fashion, and visual representations that the people of Takodana have sedimented over time and that we can still admire today. Daniel, do you remember the statue that dominates Maz's castle? It represents an idealization of Maz as a young person, what I had to do was to make those clothes lived, real, quotidian.

DJO: Love that. Let's talk about these two, Quiet Shan and Alak (formerly named Der). For Quiet Shan, I think I just described her as about eighteen with white hair, half her face covered, and a fierce demeanor. How did you go about finding the other details and imagery for her? 

With Alak, I think the only change from this is that we lost the big spider butt, but otherwise it's what we have on the final pages. I love his tattoos and how you can tell, even though he's looking gruff, he's got a sweet side. Any thoughts on your process in creating him?

 

BRUNO: Your descriptions of the characters are always so vivid that they activate my imagination. Maybe it will happen to you, too, that you know you've nailed a character when you hear him speak in your head. Well, after chatting with him for a while I also begin to see him! I can then visualize its style and define its details. I can say that this is what happened with Quiet Shan and Alak. For Quiet Shan I was inspired by the old seafaring uniforms, while for Alak he made me think from the beginning about Queequeg, a fantastic character from the novel "Moby Dick.”

DJO: You bring so much life to each character, and a lot of that is in the details and nuances — their posture, their tiny movements. I always think about Farzala flapping his ear to brush away a fly, and Lula and Zeen's perfectly teenage way of carrying themselves in Phase I. Do you plan those details out as you're reading the script, or do they occur to you naturally as you're drawing? 

BRUNO: They come to me while I'm drawing. Each character has his own age, his own personality and therefore his own movements. There are scenes, perhaps dialogue, where there is less action, where I feel a duty to the reader to use that space of inaction to define further coloring of the character's personality. This, as in everyday life, is given even by the smallest, unintentional gestures.

DJO: Ah that’s so excellent and reminds me a lot of the writing process. This has been so great, Toni, I only have one last question for you: do you have a favorite character in this run to draw?

BRUNO: In Italy we say "Il primo amore non si scorda mai." I can't help but be attached to the first character whose design I did: Sav Malagan! And I am particularly fond of her not only because she was the first, but because I had the opportunity to imagine her in different stages of growth as much in her body, which I drew both as an adult and as a teenager, and in her character and that set of unintentional but meaningful micro gestures I mentioned earlier. It was an exciting challenge to be able to reimagine the same character at different stages of her life and I got so close that I became very attached to her!

DJO: Amazing! I feel the same way, and it’s because of how much life you’ve given her from the beginning with your art. Thank you so much for taking the time and for your kind words! 

BRUNO: Thank you so much!

Make sure to go check out Toni’s stunning art over on his Instagram!

UNTIL NEXT MONTH…

As you can see, I have a ton of fun things going on this month. Stay tuned and check your inboxes for more information about the upcoming shop—I want to make sure you guys are the first to know when it launches. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in December! 

—D