Interview: Discover The Fallout of The Great Angelic War in 'Death by Life'
Dec 18, 2020
Interview by Troy-Jeffrey Allen
Angelic Wars. The archangels. The embodiment of Death. The touch of the living!
In Antarctic Press' DEATH BY LIFE (DEC201205), creators Claudio Sepulveda and Anthony Zicari bring their tale of biblical proportions to comics. In the following interview, Artist Sepulveda and writer Zicari show off some impressively moody art and give PREVIEWSworld a glimpse into why he and Sepulveda's collaboration isn't the first...and it won't be the last.
PREVIEWSworld: This is a fascinating premise, what inspired this book?
CLAUDIO SEPULVEDA: Watching the unnecessary loss of children. After seeing so many scenes of cruelty against newborns and children, I was spurred to create this story. Sometimes when you watch the news you see a tragic story about newborns found dead inside dumpsters, sometimes in plastic bags. It’s horrifying. Especially when you try to conceive a child, knowing truly how hard it is and then you look at the news about parents killing their children, because of stupid reasons. So, I decided to through this story, show the readers the true cruelty of humanity, when the lack of common sense destroys illusions, families, couples, etc.
PW: So what is DEATH BY LIFE? What is the “set-up?”
CS: The title gives you the basic idea. We will create life from death, and death will now embark on a quest to finally do something right in his life, saving a human being instead of taking it. But what are the consequences of such an act? Taking care of a child, nurturing him, and then trying to live an ordinary life while he interacts with his guardian angel, as she will become part of his “Life”.
PW: What are the Angelic Wars?
CS: Basically the first angelic war was the day they banished Lucifer and his followers to hell. After that a battle between good and evil for the souls of the living has been well, going on behind the scenes till today. However, there are certain events that even heaven has orchestrated that are kind of like black ops. They say don’t do these things that look bad but are good, and don’t do things that look good but are bad, know what I mean.
PW: Tell us about “Death” in your story. Why was it important to you that we follow this particular angel?
CS: In this version of death in our story, he is no longer as powerful as he used to be portrayed, when they lost the Angelic War, he was separated into 7 pieces. Dispersing his powers. These 7 pieces became the 7 deaths, his brothers and sisters. They have the power to make him whole again if they are able to come together but he no longer desires to be the one true angel of death tasked with taking lives over and over again because he has become bored with his “job”. Although it's his job to take the souls and send them to Caronte, it’s like our lives, there's a point within them that we just want to break the routine, for us “La Santa Muerte” it's not just the “End” it's more like a new path, and that’s why some people pray to her.
PW: What was it like working with Claudio Sepulveda? What is your collaboration like?
ANTHONY ZICARI: WOW! Great question and thank you for this wonderful opportunity to help get the word out about our new project. We greatly appreciate it. Well, first off, Claudio and I have known each other for a long time. This isn’t the first project that we have collaborated on and it definitely won’t be the last (We are currently working on a few things with more to come) but in regard to this specific project, the process has been great. Claudio and I work well together. We understand the strengths and weaknesses of each other and together I feel we make a great well-rounded team. I feel that we truly capture the unique collaborative spirit of the comic book medium. We have synergy. Claudio and I are not just collaborators, we are creators sharing a like-minded goal and beyond that we are family. For this project, Claudio had originally come to me, explained what he was thinking, showed me some designs and the direction that he wanted to go and from there we hit the ground running. It’s a lot of back and forth. We discuss stuff, then he draws the pages and then I fill in the dialogue, edit, et cetera. It's kind of like the old school way Stan (Lee) and Jack (Kirby) would work. He sees things from an artistic point of view and I see things from a written word point of view and together we meet in the middle. We work together to put forward the absolute best product that we can each and every time and we are hopeful that the readers will enjoy what we have planned for them within the pages of this story. It’s going to be one hell of a ride, literally and figuratively.
PW: Looking forward, what can readers expect from DEATH BY LIFE?
CS: Readers can expect a wild roller coaster of a ride from Heaven straight to Hell. Full of life, adult situations, action, and of course deep soul searching questions about life itself.
PW: In terms of audience, who is Death By Life for?
CS: This is basically a Mature reader book, but right now I don’t know what's mature or not, because we have many deep, thought-provoking, adult situations throughout the book. Hahaha. So, that’s a hard question to answer. It’s a bit confusing but we know that it's definitely not for kids, but this will appeal to teens (16 and up) and from there to adults. We do not show anything in regard to adult situations but we do have those situations within the book just tastefully done/addressed and yeah those other situations, and gore, definitely, gore. LOL.
PW: What is it about angels that fascinates us so much?
CS: I think the things that fascinate us so much about Angels are that Angels are fascinating but can also be very terrifying at the same time. I have had this thing for angels for a long time. They represent a higher power but also resemble us in many ways, shapes and forms. I guess the fact that having wings and having a way to come down to earth and interact with us, it’s a belief I have always had.
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