Diamond Bookshelf Magazine #42: ALA Annual Summer 2024 | Page 16

TIME . SPACE . EXISTENCE THE END OF ALL THINGS .

An Interview with the AEON Creative Team

The beginning of something new . The reconciliation of decisions . This is what awaits our fatal remains of civilization at the last black hole at the end of time .

The Neo-human , Harmony , Multitude , Remnant , Echo , and the Time Traveler all are summoned by chance , fate , or technology to discuss the trials and tribulations of the stardust ancestors they arose from .
But what is there to do , when all of time is ending , when the last particles of the universe are dissipating and moving on from the realm ?
That is a question for our unlikely conclave to decide . What type of legacy will they , can they , leave a dying universe ?
Read on to the creative team discuss working on AEON from Gungnir .
DIAMOND : For those who aren ’ t familiar , can you tell us what readers can expect from this book ? MATT MEDNEY : At the end of time , judgment has its jury . The last 7 sentient beings in a dying universe convene at the last black hole as they discuss the trials and tribulations of the stardust ancestors they arose from . It is a tale as old as time … literally . We wanted to bring the existential tone of Sandman into a science fiction paradigm . John and I had written Beyond Kuiper : The Galactic Star Alliance , and within that book is a spaceship called the Nomad . Screen Rant called it the most scientifically accurate space ship ever conceived on the page . It ’ s a reaction to our work that we hold in the highest of regards , so when we came to the idea for AEON , we knew we had to bring some future science that was unparalleled to the area .
How did this project come about ? John and I came up with the last line of the book on a random brainstorming call and that was that , we were off to the races . At the time , I was working at Heavy Metal Magazine and I had built a great relationship with Joe Harris , a writer that I hold the highest respect for . I had approached him with this idea , because John and I fall into a writing style of utmost hard science and I wanted to bring a voice who knew how to bridge hard science with digestible sci-fi fun . Once we had
Joe on the team , I was convinced we were creating something special , however , when my buddy Enzo , introduced us to Lorenza Pigliamoschewe knew we had something singular . Her art and style is unlike anything else out there , and it has been an incredible honor and experience to have her realize our words into this magnificent world .
What kind of obstacles did you face while putting this title together ? It was a new challenge for us . John says , “ Personally it was my first time working on a graphic novel , so when it came to the art , I expected that we would have a much more direct approach to setting up and editing the artwork , and when we received our first set of roughs and I was tweaking things left and right , Matt explained that as writers we need to back off a lot and trust the artist to interpret the story . Letting go was difficult , but rewarding .”
In addition to John having never written in this format before , collaborating with three authors / creators is a much different experience than with two . Would I say it ’ s a 3-Body-Problem ? Perhaps , but the new challenges were interesting to tackle , and wildly more rewarding when the three of us would align on an idea and the words .
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