Cold & Dead Is What Made Men Scatter

by Vince Brusio

Her name is Jutte Shelley, and, yes, you’re supposed to catch the reference given that she’s a descendent of the Frankenstein family. She’s also the brain child of Paul Tobin, and artist Arjuna Susini that makes her walk, talk, and convince a motley crew to join her crusade in the Made Men: Getting The Gang Back Together TP from Oni Press. Check out our PREVIEWSworld Exclusive that tells the story of a modern day family unlike any you’ve ever seen before.

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Vince Brusio: Tell us about Jutte Shelley in Made Men: Getting The Gang Back Together TP (MAR181793). We get that her last name is a play on Mary Shelley, but who is this woman that “wants to get the gang back together”? What’s her motivation? Is she the type that revels in symphonies of sickness? How does she talk? How does she walk? What does her body language reveal?

Paul Tobin: Jutte honestly just wants to be normal. Well, normal for a woman who is in charge of what amounts to a SWAT team. As the story begins, she’s built a mental barrier concerning her legacy as a member of the Frankenstein family. She’s driven to succeed on her own, and it’s only after the ambush that kills all her friends that she comes to the revelation that her skills as a “Frankenstein” are part of what define her, and that using those skills as a tool isn’t only acceptable, but necessary. She understands that it’s not about the tool; it’s about the hand that uses it. As far as reveling in symphonies of sickness, that’s not Jutte at all in the beginning of the story, but the music is steadily rising, so to speak. Regarding Jutte’s walk and talk, they’re both similar. Frenetic and aggressive. Deep down, though, she has a bit more sensitivity to her. But also more aggression. She doesn’t use her aggression to hide who she is. It is who she is.

Arjuna Susini: In regards to her body language, when I moved her in the panels, I thought about how she’d survive an ambush, how she’d have to bring her partners together, despite having a cold, dead heart.

Vince Brusio: Who are the names and faces that make up Jutte’s gang? Tell us about them. Why are they “her” gang? Why don’t they operate solo? What is it about Jutte that makes them follow her lead? And what inspired their character designs?

Paul Tobin:  The Made Men consist of Jutte herself, and then there’s Ex, who’s actually an ex-boyfriend of Jutte’s. He’s a sniper and a seducer. Then there’s Gemini, who’s two people in one, after a frantic attempt to save both their lives. Gemini is a communications expert, though the communications break down internally, between the two psyches involved in Gemini’s brain. Similar to Gemini are both Hadry and Leo, in that Jutte had to do the best she could with the resources at hand when she was bringing her team back to life. Unfortunately, in both cases, the original minds were lost. So Hadry actually has the brain of an outspoken Italian suffragette from a century in the past, and Leo…? Well, he has a lion’s head and a lion’s brain. And the Made Men gang is loyal to Jutte because, originally, they were assigned to her on the Detroit police force, where she gained their loyalty by sheer personality and competence. And then, after she raised them from the dead, there’s the dual reasons of “nowhere else to go” and also “holy #&%! You raised me from the dead!”

Arjuna Susini: I did a few test sketches of Jutte, many of which Paul initially rejected (sigh)! But then I started following a model on social media, so I’d take a little from her—changing her hair and expression to create a character with a sexy yet masculine essence. Paul loved this concept!

Vince Brusio: What was the fuel that fed your fire when it came to plot development for Made Men? How did you work to make this story combustible? Did you have a fixed idea and stay on a straight and narrow path, or did you swerve onto back roads at some point? And how do panel perspectives/close-ups/light and shadow techniques enhance the plot of the story?

Paul Tobin:  My thoughts on creating Made Men as a series were that I’d been wanting to play with the Frankenstein mythos ever since I wrote as part of the team that produced the big Prometheus / Aliens / Predator project, where we collectively used “Frankenstein mythos” as an ongoing theme. And I’d been separately thinking of a detective who could actually SOLVE murders, by that meaning not just discover who had committed the murder, but actually solve the problem entirely by bringing someone back to life. Eventually I realized I could mesh the two together, and Made Men was born. And the title references not only how the Made Men are people who have literally been made, meaning sewed back together from the dead, but also the mob slang for someone who’s killed, since the Made Men are forced to take up with the mob, having no other place in society. Plot-wise, I do have a thru-line of where I want to go, but I think it’s important to leave room for side roads. A good writer leaves room for characters and plots to evolve in unexpected ways. For me, writing isn’t an explanation of what I’m trying to say, but an ongoing exploration and evolution of what I’m trying to say.

Arjuna Susini: Paul chose me mainly for my style, I guess. I have enough grit and am quite expressive with what’s inside the characters. This is shown in one of my favorite scenes, when Jutte talks with the detective in a pizzeria, eating pizza while talking about very bloody stuff. Jutte is calm, just eating the pizza, and the detective is obviously very nervous. I loved to merge these contrasts (and then in the script, Jutte puts parmesan on the Pizza, a thing that in Italy is very prohibited — AND very hard for me to draw!).  XD

Vince Brusio: Outside of the motley crew that is Jutte’s “gang,” what other various psychologies are in the story? Any other textbook psychos lurking about, or something else altogether? For example, if we wanted to reach out and touch someone, who would be the most accessible? Or who might cut off our fingers if we tried to touch them?

Paul Tobin: In many ways, it’s a group of psychos. You can’t go through the trauma of being murdered and brought back to life without it twisting your mind into pieces. To some degree, the Made Men series is about a group of people desperately trying to keep their heads together. Jutte, for all her myriad flaws, is probably the most sane and accessible of them all, but she still ranks pretty high on the “you might get your fingers cut off” scale. Gemini probably tops that scale, although it would be Leo if we expand the scale into “fingers cut OR bitten off.” I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring all of their personalities, and as the story expands I’ll be looking into the nature of the Frankenstein family psyches in history, and we’ll slowly discover that the family saw resurrection of the dead as only the FIRST step of a process, rather than the end goal. History interrupted what they were really trying to do, but now Jutte has a second chance to break down a few more of the world’s walls.

Arjuna Susini: I think you can also consider this how a story about a modern family and the relationship between them. It’s a strange familial love that is the essence of the story — an incredible experience to return from the dead — linking Jutte’s clan that’s something a little deeper than a blood tie.

Click on the image to see it at full size!

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.