The Damned: Prodigal Sons is a three issue mini-series published by Oni Press that picks up after the original, critically acclaimed The Damned series from two years ago. Set during the Prohibition era in which organized crime families cross paths with soul-trafficking demon families, the series' protagonist, Eddie, is gifted with the curse of never being able to stay dead. Once his dead body is touched, he returns to life and the person that did the touching takes his place. As we pick up the action in issue #2, Eddie has committed suicide in order to find his dead mother in Purgatory. Meanwhile, Eddie's dead body has been stolen and his brother, Morgan, has to jump on the back of a truck full of demons to get it back.

RB: This issue is almost one long extended action sequence. How do you guys work together on plotting out an action scene like this?

BRIAN HURTT: I think this scene just began with Cullen and I agreeing that we wanted a car chase of sorts. We’d briefly done a car bit in our 6-page prequel to the first series and we wanted to take something like that and just amp it up a bit. We wanted to also get the action moving a bit, change the scenery, as this is really one long extended action scene that began in the last several pages of the previous issue.

CULLEN BUNN: Sometimes, while Brian and I are brainstorming the stories, we’ll just hit on an idea that’s too good to pass up. Often, Brian’s sketching as we’re talking. He’s just drawing random images, but I keep an eye on his sketchbook because there are some great images springing out of his subconscious and onto the page. When we started talking about the car chase, he sketched a truck careening down the street. And so this scene was born!

I typically write out the action panel by panel, at least to give Brian a solid idea of how I see the scene playing out. That said, I'll often leave it open to some interpretation. I don't map out where every individual is standing unless it is essential to the scene. After it's scripted, Brian goes into thumbnails, and he'll sometimes bump panels around or split one panel into two if he feels it will convey the action a little better.

BH: Like Cullen said, he’s already blocked the action out fairly well for me in the script. He’s got a good sense of pacing and visual storytelling so his action scenes are generally work out really well when it comes to translating it to the page. There isn’t a lot in this sequence we’re looking at that I tweaked. I added panel 2 to page 16 just to pull away from the action a bit and give a sense o the surroundings. I also added the second to last panel on page 13 of the knife flying through the air because I was a little afraid in the thumbnail stage that the flying knife in the previous panel would be lost in the chaos. It also played well into the pacing—the page builds up the action! There’s a flying knife! And THUNK! Cut scene…

RB: Brian, is it difficult making the rhythm and speed of an "action-movie" scene work in a comic or is it something that comes naturally for you? What kind of things do you need to think about, plan out, or watch out for when trying to keep the rhythm of this scene moving?

BH: I wouldn’t say difficult, I’d say challenging. I love doing this sort of stuff. If time and page count weren’t an issue we could’ve made this chase scene twice as long and twice as big. I’m not saying that would have served the story but it would’ve been fun to draw.

As I’ve said before, Cullen has a knack for the pacing so that makes my job a lot easier. I still have to do what I can to make the individual panels work—to keep them dynamic. I have to create movement in the panel, make sure that the action flows, that it’s clear and that I don’t lose track of all the characters in the space and their relation to one another. I call that kind of work “storytelling math”. When I’m laying out action scenes with multiple characters I end up assigning each character a number and my thumbnails end up looking like an NFL playbook.

My only hope is that the reader, in the end, feels the adrenaline and the energy of the scene. I can’t control how a reader views the page, how long they linger on a panel, but I can try to keep the eye moving and the action going.

RB: The Damned is set during the Prohibition and draws on many cinematic influences to capture the feel of that era. The first series contained allusions to early gangster films as well as more contemporary gangster pieces like Miller's Crossing. This issue seems to contain a very fun homage to the period-appropriate Raiders of the Lost Ark. Do you guys talk movies a lot when creating this book? How did the decision to pull elements from Indiana Jones come about here?

CB: Brian and I have talk a lot about movies whether we're working on a project together or not. What's interesting is that while we share many favorites, we also have some vast differences of opinion in what makes a good flick. The good news is, we manage to discuss these differences without killing each other. However, we didn’t really plan on this as a tribute to a specific film. We just wanted to write a rollicking action yarn. Still, the mood of this issue really owes a lot to the Raiders of the Lost Ark … or, more specifically, to the soundtrack. While I was scripting this issue, the score for the movie was playing in my head. In particular, the music from the basket chase scene was a big inspiration for the balance of action and humor I was trying to get across.

BH: I don’t believe that it was ever discussed that we would do this scene as an homage to Raiders. That said, though, it is a two-fisted action scene that takes place on a moving truck. It’s hard to avoid the comparison. The goal for this series was to continue with the same world and characters that we established in Vol. 1 but instead of doing a crime noir type detective story we wanted to go with a more pulp action, Saturday matinee vibe. It’s only fitting that we would, consciously or subconsciously, draw on Raiders or to draw on the same types of serials that Raiders was drawing on.

RB: Brian, since you also letter the book you have the advantage of being in total control of sound effects and designing them right into the page. Is this an element of the process that you enjoy because you seem to have a lot of fun with it in this scene?

BH: On the previous DAMNED series I was doing all the sound effects after the art was complete. I would do them on a separated sheet, scan them, and then composite them with the art in Photoshop. But, partway through issue one of this series I started to draw the SFX onto the page. I would incorporate them into the art as I drew it. I can’t describe the shift that happened in my mind when I started doing that. Something about drawing in the SFX has invigorated the art around it and made it much more fun and exciting to do these sort of bombastic pages.

I’ve had a lot of my friends and peers look at my recent work and tell me that they can see the difference in my work. They say it looks like I’m having a lot of fun. And they’re right! I love to hear that because that means that something is coming through in the drawings that I want to come through in them.

RB: On this page we get a dramatic double page splash that quickly cuts into the action to show Eddie's "spirit" wandering this otherworldly "Purgatory" with The Harvester. This quick cut transition is something you use to great effect throughout the series. There is an element of surprise to each scene change. Why do you decide to cut the action at this particular point and in this way?

CB: I wanted to make sure both Eddie and Morgan's stories were progressing at the same time, and I believe breaking the action from time to time gives the reader a chance to catch his or her breath before jumping back to the action. However, if I'm being completely honest, the pacing of this scene ... the cut away to Purgatory ... was all done in order to pull off the joke on the first panel of page 16. Eddie's exploring the underworld, and he's commenting on how he can take comfort in the fact that his earthly remains are safe and sound ... but little does he know his body looks like it was folded, spindled, and mutilated.

I love the way Brian drew the meat cleaver sticking in Eddie’s skull, by the way.

RB: How specific do you get when world building in this setting? Do you map out Eddie and Harve's journey through this place or is the nature of the setting loose enough that you can just let your imagination go wild?

CB: Purgatory is definitely a shifting setting, and we've mapped it out only in broad strokes. In the beginning, it was just a place of mist and spindly trees, which is strange and creepy, but can get a little dull after a while. We'd already revealed that the demons used this realm as a hiding place before they crawled into deeper realms. It just seemed natural that a city existed here at some point. In addition, the exploration of the realm in this series really helps to set up what Brian and I have planned for the overarching storyline.

BH: I’d been waiting to draw this spread since the end of Vol. 1. Cullen and I knew we were coming back and we knew that we needed to make this world more real for both Eddie and the reader. This image is pretty in line with the image that popped into my head when we first discussed the idea of the ancient city. Our “Purgatory” is a place that is bigger and more important than it at first appeared and that’s everything this two-page spread is telling you. This scene also reinforces the fact that this place has a history, as briefly touched upon in Vol. 1.

RB: Brian, how did you decide on the fuzzy panel borders that you use whenever we are in this setting?

BH: When we first introduced this place we wanted to get across that this place exists outside Eddie’s normal experience. It’s not a dream, but it’s not the real world either. I’ve always thought of this place as a ghost world. Leafless trees, ruins, fog. Populated by cloaked ghost like figures (not pictured here) so it was only a natural extension of the world and Eddie’s relationship with it that established the ghost like borders. It sometimes appears as if these images themselves are coming to us through the fog.

RB: Back to the action, we come to possibly my favorite scene in the entire series so far - Morgan smashing his brother's head through the windshield. This issue is really our introduction to Morgan. How have you used this scene to show us what Morgan's character is all about?

CB: The key here is that Eddie has been a real schmuck to Morgan for many years. The brothers have a lot of bad blood between them, but it's familial blood. Eddie's not a nice guy, and he's used his brother's dedication to family to his advantage again and again. There's pretty much nothing Morgan wouldn't do to protect his family. But just because he'll do anything to save his brother, that doesn't mean Morgan likes it. Luckily for him, he has a perfect way of venting his frustration. Eddie's dead, and nothing that happens to his body really matters. Morgan knows his brother will come back to life at some point, so bashing him up a little in the name of a rescue doesn't matter too much. Consider the beatings Eddie's corpse takes to be therapeutic for Morgan.

BH: This panel was a blast to draw—all that glass and sound effects flying around the cabin! I was looking forward to drawing this page quite a bit—I thought it was fantastic in the script. That’s one of the things I love about working with Cullen. We talk through what the broad strokes of each series and issue will be but he still writes scripts that are entertaining, exciting and surprising for me to read.

RB: Cullen, the theme of Prodigal Sons is definitely family focused. Can you talk about how you've even infused that theme into this action scene?

CB: The idea of family drives everything in the scene. Morgan's really throwing himself into the frying pan, and he's taking one hell of a beating. That's not something he would do for just anyone. But for family, he'll take great risk. What's more, he knows that Eddie killed himself and put himself in harm's way in order to rescue their mother. Morgan doesn't necessarily believe his brother can succeed, but he's willing to risk pretty much anything for even the slightest chance that Eddie might be right. The brothers have some deep, unresolved issues with their mother (just what those issues might be, we haven't revealed completely) and they'll both go to extremes for closure. Eddie kills himself. Morgan leaps onto the back of a speeding truck filled with demons.

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I want to thank Cullen and Brian for taking the time to do this interview and to Oni Press for making it possible.

The second issue of The Damned: Prodigal Sons comes out this week. The original series is also available as a trade paperback in most comic book stores. Find out more about this series at www.thedamnedcomic.com