Mattie Lubchansky, author of the horror sensation Boys Weekend, spoke with us for an interview about their creative process and their upcoming graphic novel, Simplicity. A vibrant story about a timid academic sent out from the walled dystopian security territory of New York City to investigate a cult in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains. For fans of dystopian sci-fi and horror including Bodies. This a strong LGBTQ+ entry into mind bending, generation spanning, storytelling.
How are you feeling as we get closer to the release of Simplicity? How different or similar is it to the release of your previous book, Boys Weekend?
I’m feeling very excited for it to be out in the world! Graphic novel publishing is so slow that the time from when I have an idea initially until when the finished book is in people’s hands can be something like 3 or 4 years. So I’m thrilled it’s finally coming out! The release certainly feels different – Boys Weekend was my first major release so I’m definitely feeling more relaxed about it, hoping it gets into the right peoples’ hands more than anything else.
How has your style or approach to telling stories changed between Boys Weekend and Simplicity?
My approach was vastly different in a lot of respects. Boys Weekend isn’t autobiographical but it contains a lot of autobiographical elements from my own life, and Simplicity is sort of a whole cloth invention. I started out with a lot less – just a character and a setting, and let it go all sorts of directions until I had something I was satisfied with. Boys Weekend is also by design a very episodic book – it almost could have been published as nine issues of the same story – and Simplicity I conceived as one long book from the start with a more traditional 5-act structure.
Can you talk a bit about creating the story and world of Simplicity? How did you come to set the story in 2081, and what is the significance of placing it nearly 60 years in our future?
So the setting and the year is where the book shares some DNA with Boys Weekend – I’m always drawn to working with science fiction and using a kind of funhouse mirror reflection of our own world and finding different ways to ground it. The kind of story I wanted to tell, about separatism and revolution and what the future could look like, needed to be set in a really transitory time – even moreso than our own right now – and I find the future a lot more interesting than the past.
Your work has such a distinct sense of humor. What was important to you in merging that with the elements of cult horror and dystopian fiction that are present in Simplicity?
It’s funny, I actually didn’t originally set out to include as much humor in Simplicity – aiming somewhere a little different after making such an overtly jokey couple of books with Boys Weekend and my novella The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook. But I’ve spent so much of my career as a cartoonist as a satirist that it definitely is always bleeding into my fiction regardless of my intentions. I always find myself drawn, also, in my own reading, to science fiction writers that include a satirical edge in their work – Vonnegut, Atwood, Mieville come to mind. I think it’s a really engaging way to draw someone into a new world.
Since the release of Boys Weekend in 2023, you have been regularly publishing comics online. How does your process for writing full-length graphic novels interact with your more frequent short-form comics?
I’ve been publishing comics online at a weekly clip since about 2008, both on my own website and on The Nib (2013-2023). I very much set out originally to make longer-form fiction work like I am now, but definitely was able to find an audience with the shorter-form work, and I enjoy making it immensely. I find making that work has given me a really solid sense of rhythm and timing, you really have to know how to get what you want to say across quickly and efficiently.
Is there anything you’ve read, watched, or listened to recently that has inspired you?
For this book specifically, I was really inspired by Chris Jennings’ book Paradise Now, a nonfiction account of some American utopian movements in the 19th century. More recent stuff I’ve really loved is Elijah Kinch-Spector’s Kalyna the Cutthroat which I thought touched on a lot of the same themes as Simplicity, but when somewhere completely different with it. I also finally just got around to reading Hal Shrieve’s Vivian’s Ghost which I loved and really lit my brain up with some great character writing. I recently picked up Angel Perez and Remy Boydell’s The Pervert and thought it was really fantastic….I recently saw The Substance and really reveled in its weird grossness.
What do you look for when you walk into a comic shop?
When I’m in a comic shop, I’m really just looking for something new and exciting! It’s such a rich medium, and there’s so many interesting places to go with a comic book. Either the content, or the look, or the format – I just want to be surprised.
Retailers: Simplicity goes on FOC on July 7th. Eligible comic shops will receive a bundle of an exclusive one-shot comic called Escape from Zillionaire Island. Read the linked blog post below for more information on this tie-in promo item. If you are not sure whether you are participating in this promo but would like to, reach out to your PRH Direct Market sales rep to see if Escape from Zillionaire Island is still available.
