Vesper #1 - An Interview with Daniel Kalban
- Creator of American Dreams, Knightwrath, Rook & Knight + much more
- Contributor to several anthologies, including Ringo-nominated Cthulhu Invades Wonderland
Keeping it Geekly - Hello and welcome back to Keeping it Geekly, Daniel! What have you been up to since we last spoke, and how was the Baltimore Comic-Con? It looked like a blast this year!
Daniel Kalban - Hey, Cody! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Baltimore was so fun, but it takes a lot of work to table there. I’ve been working on a lot of books. These range from more issues of American Dreams, Knightwrath, and Rook & Knight, to my gothic mystery series The Crimson Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: The Phantom Masquerade, to several anthology entries, to my own Jewish comics anthology, Chutzpah!, to my comic for Summit Comics, Vesper, which is now on Kickstarter!
KiG - The last couple of times that we have spoken, we have covered Knightwrath & American Dreams Vol 1. Tell us a bit about the other series you have worked on since?
DK - Well, we touched a bit on Rook & Knight, which is my take on the Batman and Robin archetypes and is also set in my “Libertyverse”, which also includes American Dreams and Knightwrath. It is about a father and son vigilante team that is falling apart. And it couldn’t happen at a worse time because a drug has hit the streets of New York that gives common criminals superpowers. The art is done by the fantastic Baggs Brothers with letters by Jerome Gagnon.
Then there is The Crimson Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: The Phantom Masquerade. It acts as a sequel to the original 1910 Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera (so NOT the musical), as well as a follow-up to the Sherlock Holmes stories The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House. It is Sherlock Holmes, back from “The Great Hiatus” going up against the Phantom in a race against time to find Christine Daaé’s kidnapped son. But can the Phantom be trusted? After all, obsession never truly dies. The art for this project is by Jeremiah Schiek, who won a Doylean Award from the Arthur Conan Doyle Society of New York for his art on this issue, colors by my American Dreams colleague Warnia K. Sahadewa, and letters by Justin Birch.
I also started showrunning a Jewish comics anthology called Chutzpah!. I felt there was a need for better Jewish representation in comics, and I wanted us to be included in the various diversity initiatives and anthologies that the Big 2 have been producing. I was grousing about it to my friend Sasha Kaplan at Baltimore a couple of years ago, and she said “Daniel…just do it yourself!”. So we put together a great editorial team, and we’re currently wrapping up the second installment.
I’ve also been part of a few anthologies as well, namely Holiday Spirits Vol 3 and Storage Horrors. I contributed a story for each on Jewish themes. For HS3, I wrote “Bubbe Is Home Alone”, which is a take on a certain film franchise with the protagonist being a Jewish grandmother with a more…lethal way of dealing with robbers. For Storage Horrors, I wrote “The Dybbuck’s House”, where a family has to summon a rabbi to exorcise what they think is a possessed dollhouse. The art on those stories are done by Damon Horne and Eraklis Petmezas. I’ve also done some work for some other anthologies, but they haven’t been officially announced yet.
There’s also been three issues of American Dreams’ second arc since released and we’re hoping to release the next two next year.
KiG - We are here to talk about Vesper #1 today, and the first couple of pages set a rather heavy tone for the series. What was your thought process behind creating this anti-hero?
DK - Well, for a while, I’ve had a thought circling in my brain: what would happen if a child got injected with super-soldier serum, and what would be the long-ranging consequences. This idea had been turning over and over, and when Summit Comics was coming together, I pitched the concept. People seemed to like it, so I started to work on it. It actually took a while to figure out what would be the inciting incident that got him his abilities, and as you said, it’s a rather heavy subject (without going into spoilers). I knew I had to tread very carefully. I think we dealt with it seriously and tactfully.
KiG - What did the collaboration between artist Marlon Souza and yourself look like?
DK - Well, Marlon and I had been looking to do a project for a bit, and he was on the list of potential artists for it that I showed the editorial team. After things were signed off, we basically hit the ground running. Essentially, he starts with a rough layout of a set of pages that he shows me, and I show editorial to see if we need any adjustments before he goes to finer details. Then over the course of a few days, he adds on the more polished art and final details, with me keeping editors apprised of how things are looking. Once the pages are done and signed off on, and I get the high-res images, I send them off to Henry Lopez, our colorist, to begin his work.
KiG - Can you tell us about Vesper’s first official appearances within Sneak Peak and Pinnacle Origins? Does he work well with others, or could we see any possible confrontations in the future?
DK - Vesper, currently, is a bit of a lone wolf. Sure, he will work with people at VIGILE (our SHIELD equivalent), but those are mainly Matron, the current leader of the agency, and Daedalus, the R&D head who also watched him grow up. But due to his various issues, and as we’ll reveal in the backup stories for the first arc, certain events made him be more of a loner. However, certain characters might start breaking through that shell he’s developed. One of those will be Andriy, the Ukrainian teen in the Prelude story found in both Sneak Peak and Pinnacle Origins, as he was also experimented on as a teen. But it will take some of a push to have those two have a working relationship. There’s also his uncle and former mentor, Major Victorious, but they aren’t exactly on the best of terms as our story begins. There are other characters I plan to introduce in later issues and arcs that will puncture that wall he’s built up, but that will take a while.
KiG - Vesper is set to be Summit Comics’ premiere antihero super soldier, with the first issue serving as his solo comic debut. What can we expect from this “Super Soldier for Hire” within the Summit Universe?
DK - If you’re a fan of action and adventure, along with some espionage, this is going to be right up your alley. He has to investigate a mysterious organization known as The Nail that is creating knock-off super-soldier serum and is distributing it to extremist groups. Not much is known about them yet, but as the story continues, Vesper and the Nail will be thorns in each other’s sides.
KiG - What are you up to outside of Vesper #1? Do you have any other projects in the works that you can talk about?
DK - Right now, a lot of it is keeping a lot of plates in the air spinning with my established series. However, I just pitched an idea to Mad Cave (and am working on pitching it to other places as well), and working on another pitch or two. But I want to keep those somewhat under wraps.
KiG - Thank you so much for swinging by to chat. I really appreciate the opportunity to dive deeper into the Summit Universe as well as this character. Where can my readers find you to stay up to date with your work?
DK - You can find me at danielkalban.com, which has a Linktree that will also send you to my Substack newsletter, as well as various places where you can pick up my work digitally.
Be sure to check out the campaign for VESPER #1 here!
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