Darcy Van Poelgeest Interview (Precious Metal)

We catch-up with Darcy Van Poelgees, award-winning writer and director to discuss his current title for Image Comics with Ian Bertram, PRECIOUS METAL. Welcome to Impulse Gamer Darcy – The follow-up to your LITTLE BIRD saga with Ian Bertram has arrived.

Tell us your inspiration behind PRECIOUS METAL?

DVP: My inspiration behind doing PRECIOUS METAL has a lot of layers to it. The simplest one is my desire to keep the collaboration going between Ian Bertram. When we finished LITTLE BIRD, we both felt like we were at the beginning of our working relationship, not the end, so we wanted to jump into the next thing. But it was PRECIOUS METAL specifically because we both loved the character of Max Weaver (aka; Sarge) and I wanted to explore him further. He’s so broken in LITTLE BIRD, and he came with so much baggage, so I became excited about opening that up and picking through it.

What are some of the themes behind PRECIOUS METAL?

DVP: I’m not very good at dissecting my own work in this way but there’s some reoccurring themes in all my work, such as memory, particularly memories revolving around early childhood and how those shape us and our future. I started thinking of memories as physical objects at some point and then the idea that some of these, maybe what we’d call “core memories” are solidified to the point of being encased in metal. So, it’s this idea that some memories are precious and immovable, inescapable.

But as I said, I’m playing with a lot of ideas here, as I tend to do. Many of those ideas and themes won’t be clear to me until I’ve had some distance from the work.

Mod-tracker Max is a powerful yet broken man – how will we see this character grow as the story progresses?

DVP: I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say that expand on this character, coming out of LITTLE BIRD, where he’s much older, was a wonderful challenge for me because when we first meet Max in LITTLE BIRD, he’s old and broken. And when we first meet him in PRECIOUS METAL, he’s 35 years younger but he’s also broken. So, there was this unique challenge of creating a character arc that we might not typically get in a story like this, because he does go through significant changes and yet he never truly escapes who he started out as. I’ll leave it at that. It’s been fun working within the confines of that beginning and ending.

Who is Max to you?

DVP: Max is fascinating because in another story, from another character’s perspective, he could be a villain. He doesn’t have a lot of redeeming qualities, particularly when we first meet him. But when you get to know someone like that you begin to see past that, and the image that forms in front of you is one of someone who’s endured a lot of loss and pain. Someone who struggles with intimacy and being vulnerable because they’ve never experienced much of it themselves. There’s a bit of Max in everyone to various degrees. That’s what I love about writing this character. I’m nothing like Max but I understand him and I’m on this journey with him. There’s a sense of like, come one, we’ll figure this out together. We’ll do our best.

For keen readers of LITTLE BIRD, are there any Easter Eggs littered through this new chapter?

DVP: Oh yah, plenty! But most of them are subtle. I wasn’t interested in hammering home any big wink, wink, moments. I wanted to design a story that worked equally for readers who have read LITTLE BIRD and readers who haven’t. But if you’ve read both you’re sure to pick up on some extra goodies.

Can you walk us through the creative process between you and Ian?

DVP: That’s tough because the process is just so fluid at this point. We started working on LB together 10 years ago so it’s hard to even define it at this point. But the simplest version I can give you is that it’s very collaborative. I’m writing everything, Ian is illustrating everything but it’s quite messy in the middle. Ian is throwing ideas my way as we go or giving me feedback. I’m often walking him through some of the more complex themes that I’m working through and sharing past histories or future dreams for characters that will never make it on the page. Ian throws in an idea. I’ll send him a compositional sketch. We’re just fully immersed in it. And I never stop writing, I just write and write and write until it eventually goes to print, and I can’t write anymore, ha.

Ian’s art is spectacular, especially his unique style – how does this complement the story?

DVP: Ian’s art just elevates the story in every way. He’ll take an idea that feels relatively small and intimate on the page (that’s often my focus) and he’ll blow it up into something that just takes your breath away. We’re both big dreamers but in very different ways and I think that’s a big part of what works between us. Ian is a gift to comics, and a gift to me as a writer.

As a writer what was your biggest challenge behind PRECIOUS METAL and biggest reward?

The biggest challenge for Precious Metal was just doing it. It’s nearly 300 pages long and it was just a big commitment, from myself and Ian but also everyone else involved, including the publisher. And the biggest reward…I’m not sure, honestly. I suppose having people read it. So much of the joy for me is in the making of it. But I suppose when I eventually show up at a convention and meet some readers, particularly fans of LITTLE BIRD who’ve been patiently waiting for PRECIOUS METAL, there’ll be a great deal of satisfaction there as well.

If you could have a beer with three characters from PRECIOUS METAL, who would they be and why?

Probably Max, a character you have met yet who I’ll just call “the old man”, and the bishop. Bishop most of all though. I’m really fascinated by characters and people who do so much harm in the world and yet, must be convinced on some level that what they’re doing is right. I’m interested in unpacking that dissonance between what the world needs and what they’re trying to accomplish and trying to get through to them on some level.

Lastly, if PRECIOUS METAL was to become a TV series, would you prefer live action or animated form?

Honestly, I get asked this a lot! And I have no preference. My preference would be to do something real with it. To adapt it so it works perfectly for that specific medium. I don’t think I’d be trying to recreate the comic. We already spent years doing that. I’d just want to do it in a way that brings all the heart and mayhem to that screen in whichever form serves it best and to have viewers get the same sensation that readers of the series are getting which generally feels, “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I want more.”

Check Out PRECIOUS METAL #1 and #2 at https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/precious-metal-1-of-6, including all good comic stores.