When you were designing the costumes for the show, did you work with Frank Quitely on what they should like, or was it very much down to you to take these characters off the page and bring what they wear into the real world, all while tackling the responsibility that comes with that?
That’s a great question. I’ll answer that with my personal feelings. The reality is, when you’re given something as massive as this and coming from seminal work, you can’t do this without getting your panties in a bunch immediately! There’s a lot of sweat going on. We didn’t have access to Frank initially or at least we weren’t communicating. So, I tried to take the vision of the showrunner and producers absolutely always reverting back to the story and what was in those beautiful comics, lifting off and expanding from there. One of my greatest moments in this entire project was in October 2019. We were shooting and I came out of a door and completely unbeknownst to me, there stood Frank and his wife. The whole family. We walked him through all the costumes of all the different worlds. We had three warehouses of period, contemporary, and we landed in the superhero one and he was smiling from ear to ear in a way that just finished me off. I pretty much had to hold on to something to not pass out. That is the greatest acknowledgement that anyone who has to interpret a world like this could get. Not only that, I’m a nerd like everyone else, and I understand how important that is, but meeting my own hero was really special. He held up The Utopian costume and couldn’t let go of that beam. The minute he left the building, I fell on the floor [Laughs].
We’ve not heard anything official about a season 2 yet, but if it were to happen, are there any characters from the comics who weren’t in this first season you’re excited to come up with live-action costumes for?
We don’t know, but I would be hopeful that the show is given a second season. One of the greatest things is that it’s a really good investment, and if you invest in the portfolio, I think there’s going to be a great pay off. This material and the world Mark created means it’s a world literally littered with superheroes and villains and bringing them from the page and reinterpret those things means we can find something hidden in the text or hidden in the pictures that aren’t necessarily known about and keep going because anyone could be a hero or villain. There are a lot of characters, but I’m more interested to see the evolution of Paragon and Brandon. I’m interested in seeing the evolution of characters that didn’t get screentime this season like Ruby Red who really represent the multiculturalism that is hugely important in this story. We have somebody from everywhere and there are cultural backstories to these things that we need to expand on and will do if there’s a season two. I would look forward to that because it’s something we really rolled into this first season. It may not be completely evident, but everyone has a lineage story to that event that happens on the island and that could be amazing. Given the storyline in the comics, it’s a roulette wheel of any period because the antics are far-reaching and extend over a hundred years. That part of it could be really cool.
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