Deniz Camp writes comics. The son of Turkish and Filipina immigrants, born in the Philippines but raised in the American midwest, he’s known for 20th Century Men (Image Comics), Agent of WORLDE (Scout Comics), Maxwell’s Demons (Vault Comics), and Bloodshot Unleashed (Valiant Ent). He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, 11 chickens and a mountain of hope.
Interviewee: Deniz Camp
Interviewer: Anthony Andujar Jr
Q1. You’ve worked on Agent of Worlde, Maxwell’s Demons, 20th Century Men, Bloodshot: Unleashed, and recently wrapped up work on the X-Men mini-series, Children of The Vault. Given that you’ve worked on these various books, what has the creative journey been like with each project and publisher?
DC: Personally, it’s just about trying to get better as I go. My only real career goal is to be a better writer and a better collaborator. I spend a lot of time trying to improve – because I have a long way to go!
But my main takeaway from doing this work is the amazing relationships I’ve gotten to form with my collaborators over the years. I’ve made lifelong friends and brothers from this work, and it’s been one of the most enriching and beautiful parts of making art together. I once heard someone say about making films that the film itself is just a kind of byproduct, the real thing is the process of making it, and I’ve found that to be true in comics.
Q2 What are the challenges with working with different publishers and sandboxes that you’re allowed to play in?
DC: There’s quite a difference in creator owned vs Work For Hire, in terms of freedom, ambition, and time. WFH is great because you get to draw on these vast wells of creativity, the continuity of characters, and try to cobble together a version of the characters that come alive for you. With Bloodshot, Cable, Bishop, and the Children of the Vault, that was a goal; trying to create voices for them that felt true to what came before, but fresh, and to give them stories that challenged them specifically.
With creator-owned, you’re building stuff from the ground up. It’s more work and more daunting, but the freedom is intoxicating, and the work more personal and more satisfying.
Q3 You’ve recently wrapped up work on Children of the Vault, an X-Men mini-series centered on Cable and Bishop as they deal with the fallout of Krakoa. How did you get attached to this project?
DC: The editor, Sarah Brunstad, reached out to me with the title and Bishop and Cable as the protagonists. I believe she thought I’d be a good fit after reading my Bloodshot work. It’s a pretty big risk to try to bring in new talent to places like Marvel and DC, and Sarah is really generous in doing that.
Q4 In the various series and characters that you’ve written, cyberpunk and weary soldiers that are caught within the military-industrial complex seem to be a running theme with varying perspectives. What was it about Cable and Bishop that made them the go-to characters for this story, and how did they reflect some of those concepts that are of interest?
DC: Sarah actually came to ME with Cable and Bishop as the protagonists/X-Men involved. She insightfully saw that the Children of the Vault made a big thing about being “the future”, and there was a thematic richness to pitting them against the two X-men characters most associated with the future. I couldn’t agree more! And I think my experience on 20CM and Bloodshot probably made me an obvious fit since Bishop and Cable are two soldier characters.
From there, it was really a matter of finding their voices, both separately and together. Their history fit with the future theme well, so I knew I wanted it to be a big part of the book. And that’s sort of the beauty of continuity; their begrudging allies dynamic isn’t necessarily something I would have come up with on my own, it grew out of all those old stories, and it really came alive for me.
It’s character that most interest me as a writer, and so while the book is mostly a big, sci-fi action spectacle, they are the heart of the book – both their dynamic and their own complicated pasts. I knew I wanted to make the Children kind of distant and alien, and so Bishop and Cable grounded us, and balanced the book (I think/hope).
Q5 When crafting the story for Children of the Vault, what was the writing process like? Were there any conversations with the editors of the X-offices and fellow writers? How did you navigate making a story that is standalone yet complimentary to the rest of the Krakoan era of X-titles?
DC: I’ve been extremely blessed to be given a ton of creative freedom on everything I’ve done for others. Whether it’s Valiant, Marvel, or DC, I’ve been interfered with very little (so if you don’t like the results, there’s no one to blame but me!). The other X-writers were really supportive if I needed it, but for the most part, I just wrote what I felt was best, and Sarah came in to let me know if certain characters were off limits or out of service, etc. but otherwise, I had near total freedom. It was a little surprising and scary, to be honest!
Of course, they filled me into the status quo, and I read pretty much everything the Children, Cable, and Bishop had ever been in, plus most of the Krakoa era stuff, to prepare. Once or twice Kieron Gillen had to be consulted by one or two elements, and he was very kind and generous!
Q6 What is it about the Children of the Vault that made them a perfect foil for Cable and Bishop to deal with?
DC: The children represent one vision for the future – throughout their previous appearances they repeat some version of the phrase “we are the future” – and that made them a perfect foil to Krakoa/the mutants, who likewise represented a vision for the future (especially with their repeated predictions of sapien extinction). And Cable/Bishop in particular are known for THWARTING apocalyptic futures, so thematically I think it was a beautiful fit.
Q7 Were there parts of the story that didn’t make the cut within this four-issues series? Or did you get to write everything that made it to publication?
DC: There’s always more that gets left on the cutting room floor than makes it into my comics, that’s just the nature of it. I would have liked to dig into everything a bit more; Cable and Bishop’s past and internal state, the history and politics of the Children of the Vault, I’d have liked to spend more time on the Orchis/Children war, etc. But I think the compression and fast pace of the book was also part of what people responded to, so I’ve got no regrets. It’s probably for the best! All you have to do to see what happens when I’m not reined in is look at 20th Century Men, where the issues sometimes swelled to 52 pages (and even there, there was another 300 pages worth of stuff we never got to do!)
Q8 Were there other characters within Children of the Vault that you had in mind aside from Cable and Bishop?
DC: Well, Serafina was the biggest one, of course, and I had a ton of fun with Martillo because a big guy with a big hammer is just such a fun, ridiculous visual. I had fun inventing a lot of new Children, too, to be honest – it’s a very cool concept, and the time bubble means you get to reinvent them with every new appearance. I tried to give everyone a personality and a “story”, even if we only saw them for a panel or a page, but with the Children, it was mostly about exploring them as a society. I was more engaging my science fiction muscles for them, and drawing some connections to real-world colonialism.
Q9 Not only have you worked on a Hickman-related X-men mini-series, but it was announced that you are working on a new project set within the new Ultimate Universe. What led you to become the writer of The Ultimates?
DC: Wil Moss, the editor, reached out to me after reading 20th Century Men and talking to Jonathon Hickman, who I’ve worked with a bit before. While Ultimates is a very different beast, it has a lot in common with 20CM, with its alternate history and idiosyncratic take on classic superheroes archetypes. Anyone who is curious what Ultimates will look like should read 20th Century Men!
Q10 What should readers expect for this new Ultimates series?
DC: We’re trying to reinvent the whole super team concept for this. I hope it will feel different and surprising to any Marvel superhero book you’ve read before, while at the same time feeling true to the core of the characters. We’re doing something pretty new, I think, but longtime Marvel fans will find a lot that they recognize, done in a new way. There will be plenty of easter eggs, winks, and callbacks to past Ultimates and MU stories, but we’re really focusing on “new”.
Follow Deniz Camp on Instagram at @denizcampcomics
Brian Isaacs - Executive Editor / Publisher