Lemire: It wasn’t in the initial pitches, but it emerged early on in conversations with Dustin. Is this something that was in the story from the onset or was it something you came up with later?

Lu: In the third issue of the story, you introduce the concept of a robotic afterlife. It’s nice, especially on creator owned stuff, when you have the opportunity to let the story take you wherever it wants to go and if you go in a direction you hadn’t anticipated, you can go back and rework earlier things to make everything line up. When you’re doing the monthly schedule, most people are getting the scripts in right on time and flying by the seat of their pants. That’s a real benefit that you don’t often get working in monthly serialized comics. Lu: Because you work so far ahead, do you often find yourself revising older scripts based upon where the later ones take you? Right now is my time off from Descender so I can let it sit and come back to the scripts once Dustin draws them. I’m juggling so many projects right now that the only way I can handle it is to be so far ahead on everything that I can take a couple months off one thing to work on something else. Lemire: Yeah, I work really far ahead on everything. Lu: Eleven scripts? You’re pretty far ahead.

I’ve written eleven scripts, and the reception has been as we possibly could have hoped, both critically and in sales numbers. Dustin’s finished issue five and he’s working on number six.

Essex county lemire