‘Lost Fantasy’ Team Dissects Their Video Game Inspired Monster Comic
Looking for a comic book series inspired by Final Fantasy? Then look no further than the upcoming comic book series Lost Fantasy, coming soon from Image Comics, writer Curt Pires (Indigo Children), and artist Luca Casalanguida (James Bond).
In Lost Fantasy,
“A magical world lies beneath ours, and first contact was made over a hundred years ago between the two worlds due to a natural disaster, resulting in a schism that allowed monsters to break through. Since then, secret monster slayers, known as The Great Hunters, have been working with global leaders to police the border and to keep our world safe from the creatures that lurk in the shadows. But last night, something broke through, resulting in a mysterious mass killing in Montana, and causing things to shift in a way that will ripple through both worlds. Now it’s up to rookie monster hunter Henry Blackheart to stop it…”
Ahead of the first issue’s release, Pires and Casalanguida have dissected the story’s bloody cold open for Dread Central. They gave us an exclusive look at the script-to-inks-to-page process and how they collaborated to create the vibe and horror of Lost Fantasy.
THE SCRIPT
As with films, comics always start with a script. For Pires, he knew he wanted a shocking cold open that sucks the reader in and doesn’t let them go.
“I knew I wanted to give the book a cold open that immediately pulled you in and set up the stakes,” he said. “It didn’t take me long to come up with this imagery of this girl covered in blood running through the woods—it’s something that’s just instantly evocative and captured my attention and interest.”
Pires added, “I consider myself the first reader besides being the writer so that is usually a good sign. The hunter she runs into is a red herring of sorts that you’re meant to sort of be afraid of for the little girl and wonder if he’s going to harm her. And then we quickly pull the rug out and establish that what’s coming for her is actually much worse.”
“When I read the the first page of the script, I said, ‘Fuck!’ Then I kept saying it on the following pages! The beginning of the story immediately grabbed me. The little girl running off into the woods is a powerful image,” said Casalanguida. “You wonder what she is running from, why she is running, and if she will be saved. You immediately take her to heart.”
THE INKED DRAWINGS
After reading the script, Casalanguida got started on the ink drawings to bring Pires’ vision to life. He said, “I really enjoy drawing forests—I like to play with shadows and contrasts. This story was really fun to draw. It’s got everything you want in a comic: action, fights, intrigue, real characters, monsters, magic, and horror.”
Pires said about Henry’s introduction, “We start in a room which is basically ground zero of a bender. Then we see him walk out of this seedy motel room and into this magical slum of sorts. It immediately sets the tone for the kind of magic in our book—and the magic world we’re showing is not your familiar type of fantasy.”
Casalanguida added, “We’re confronted with a real world where characters talk and do things as we do every day, and suddenly you discover a world hidden in plain sight where all sorts of elements or characters could be anything. You don’t know what to expect. Henry, we find out, is a complete mess. Maybe you don’t want to know what he’s done to make himself like this. But when he answers the phone, he has to go.”
THE FINISHED PRODUCT
Now, get an exclusive look at the finished product!
Pires said about this page, “What’s interesting here is it shows how (co-creator and artist) Luca Casalanguida and I work. There was no dialogue in the script, and I went back and added it in after I saw the art. The Arby’s line is mundane conversation/comedy that proceeds an image so horrifying that you know what happens even though we cut to black.”
Casalanguida said about creating Henry, “His appearance was very clear in Curt’s mind. I tried to make him very simple and practical in his clothes (he has to move and fight nimbly), but at the same time, you can’t forget him after seeing him. We didn’t do a lot of studying for him, he came out of the box. That’s the way it usually works for me. The characters have to take shape from the pages, from what they do and say, how they move, their attitude. Only then do they feel real.”
The first issue of Lost Fantasy hits shelves on April 30, 2025.
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