by Jarrod Jones. In dreams, giants dwell. In Behold, Behemoth, the latest creator-owned series from Tate Brombal and Nick Robles, those giants aren’t just hanging around—they’re here to tell us something. Maybe they foretell doom. Possibly hope. It’s complicated.
Behold, Behemoth deals in the tough stuff. Depression, death, doom, it’s all in there. But Greyson manages, and so we, the readers, do too. The burden of Greyson’s life, the choices that made him who he is, the tragedies that occupy his thoughts, we’re a part of that in this book. And, because this is a horror comic, we’re a part of Greyson’s dreams too. And, whoo, there’s a lot happening in there. Through Greyson’s mind, we see the end of the world and the behemoth that dwells there.
Reading Behold, Behemoth makes me think about how we’re all actively processing a world that seems to be getting bleaker by the day, so naturally, I have to ask Tate and Nick about that kind of stuff. They were kind with their answers.
“There are times when I lie down, and my mind starts spinning—usually after some horrible, new statistic—and I start to feel the hands of this overwhelming sadness and insignificance reaching for me, pulling me down, and suffocating me,” Tate tells me. “And often, the only way I can get this darkness to let me go is by boxing it all up and tucking it away. Which isn’t healthy! At some point, that dam is going to burst. All of this pent-up fear and powerlessness needs to go somewhere… So, I channeled it all into this book!”
Tate laughs, but it’s a feeling his collaborator shares. “I like characters who deal with anxiety and depression,” Nick says. “Getting to funnel, or see some of my personal feelings in a main character, a protagonist, will always be one of my favorite things. To see him march and stumble through it all, on the cracks of a breaking world while still moving forward. I like that notion quite a lot.
“One step at a time, Grey.”
I spoke with Tate Brombal and Nick Robles about their first and mighty collaboration, which Tate has titled Behold, Behemoth, as well as managing creativity during rough times and how good Nick draws. (Because he draws real good.)
1. Figure we might as well start with a big one. [Laughs] As a project, Behold, Behemoth feels like a sort of creative catharsis for both of you. Tate, you’re flexing thematic muscles and kit-bashing genres, while Nick, it sure looks like you’re pushing against the limits of your visuals to hit yet another stratum of hugeness in your work. When you two got together, what did you initially agree on that needed to be achieved in this book, at least creatively? I mean, this is a big swing.
Tate Brombal: I think we both wanted to make the book that neither of us could make with anybody else. I mean, I had this set up at BOOM! before Nick came on board, and I kept telling them that Nick was the only person that could make it work. And Nick knew all about the book, we talk every day, so I was always designing it with him in mind… Then, thank the gods, Nick took a leap of faith and joined me! So, before anything else, Nick and I wanted to make a book that really allowed us to experiment and flex our various muscles. Something that only we could make.
And when you say catharsis, it’s totally right. I didn’t go into this book cherry-picking genres or trying to create a ridiculous mish-mash of influences. This story arrived fully formed and could only work as is. And I had this first issue in my head for over a year before I finally sat down to write it! So it really just flowed out of me and felt like a genuine release. It contains everything I’m feeling right now at this point in my life and career. The chaos is the point. The confusion is the point. None of it should work, none of it should be happening, but that’s the state of the world right now. And that’s this first issue.
Nick Robles: I first heard about Behemoth a year or so back. (What is time in this pandemic age?) It’s one of those titles that instantly grabs you and holds your interest, so I never forgot about it. Over the next year, Tate and I spoke frequently about creative goals, collaborations, and interests. We always seemed to be in harmony about ideas and themes we wanted to explore, so it was easy to team up for this when the time came!
As for the art side of things, Tate—and our editors!—knew and supported my desire to experiment and handle everything on my own. With that security, I knew this book would be something special and original. Something that Tate and I both crafted from the ground up with everything that we had been excitedly talking about since we first met. All those creative desires? Behold—this is it!
2. Tate, let’s talk a bit about Greyson. He’s a social worker; the whole point of his career is to help others and find a way for folks to put their lives together, sometimes after significant trauma. But he’s falling apart, and it seems to me that this disintegration was here even before the death of his estranged brother. How do you construct a character carrying a freight’s worth of baggage like Greyson? We’re not going to just sympathize with his plight, given where this story looks like it’s going, right?
TB: I think you ground it or, maybe, centre [sic] it is the better word. Yes, he’s carrying a freight’s worth of baggage. Yes, he has trauma stacked on top of trauma across many years. But, at this moment when the first issue opens, Grey is mourning a brother who died too soon. A brother who he never got the chance to properly reconcile with. And even though we get a peek at some of Grey’s previous hardships, it all comes back to his brother. Plus! The rest of the world could be falling apart around him, but Greyson is just trying to get through his workday! The hope is that people recognize themselves in his plight and empathize, even if they’ve never lost a sibling or been on the brink of mental collapse. Because we all know what a bad day looks like. Everything else is just sprinkled on top.
3. The imagery of Behold, Behemoth feels both familiar and frightening. Nick, your choice of color captures the banality of life, but there’s something that seems to intentionally burn at the margins, a promise of scorched earth. The hues evoke apocalypse and autumn. Change and catastrophe. How does color affect your approach when you’re formatting these double-page vistas? How do the details of Greyson’s story change that approach?
NR: You captured it perfectly mentioning “autumn” and “change.” This first book has a lot of twilight ochre and nighttime colors when it’s not red with panic. I wanted that feeling of sunset and uneasy transition. An anxious goodbye to the present, with a scream from nightmares that were and will be.
4. There’s a line in the first issue that stands out: “If you think the world is ending all at once, you haven’t been paying attention.” It’s easy to feel miserable after even a cursory scan of The Current State of Things. [Laughs] And it is not uncommon to dread the grim, logical conclusions of failing states, crumbling economies, and the inevitability of our mortality. We’re all getting older; the world’s on fire; I feel what you’re conjuring in Behold, Behemoth. How has making this comic helped you cope with the feelings of helplessness or despair that unquestionably come from watching the future dim a bit in the face of current affairs?
TB: Oh, God, it’s just given me someplace to put it all! [Laughs] There are times when I lie down and my mind starts spinning—usually after some horrible, new statistic—and I start to feel the hands of this overwhelming sadness and insignificance reaching for me, pulling me down, and suffocating me. And often, the only way I can get this darkness to let me go is by boxing it all up and tucking it away. Which isn’t healthy! At some point, that dam is going to burst. All of this pent-up fear and powerlessness needs to go somewhere… So, I channeled it all into this book! [Laughs]
NR: I’m happy to have a project to throw my mind into and not think about things so much! [Laughs] That said, I like characters who deal with anxiety and depression. Getting to funnel, or see some of my personal feelings in a main character, a protagonist, will always be one of my favorite things. To see him march and stumble through it all, on the cracks of a breaking world while still moving forward. I like that notion quite a lot. One step at a time, Grey.
5. On that note, I want to shift to glimmers of hope. [Laughs] Tell me about Wren, what she represents in your story, what she means to Greyson, and what she means to you.
TB: I can’t say much because I don’t want to spoil the story, but Wren is where I’m placing all my Hope. Grey can have my Fear and my Anxiety. But Wren has my hope.
NR: For what she means to the story and Greyson… Well, that’s for the readers to find out! As for me? Everything. “Hope” is a good word!
6. There’s a brotherly bond that fuels Greyson’s strange, monstrous apotheosis. Tate, I’m interested in learning what brotherhood means to you and how you’ve parsed past experiences enough that you can forge a story as fraught with emotional devastation as this. Family sure can make the world feel like it’s ending from time to time, can’t it?
TB: Oh my god, Jarrod, are you living in my brain?! [Laughs] But, seriously, family and brotherhood and blood are very fraught things. And I’m part of a community whose families are just as much Found as they are Born Into. So, I’m much more interested in the bonds themselves and the differences between them. What forges them? What severs them? It’s no accident that the End of the World seems to be triggered by a family falling apart. I’ve spent the last few years watching families and those relationships become more and more fraught with everything happening. And, yet, some have only grown stronger.
7. Nick, your characters always look like real people but are often so damn pretty. It’s obscene. [Laughs] With Behold, Behemoth, are you actively working to make your character designs more grounded in reality, with all the horror and desolation that comes with the story? Things have to get even, um, messier before the end, right?
NR: I can’t shake that pinup background! It always peeks through. [Laughs] That said, I am trying to ground characters to have an element of reality and truth to them. Things and characters will visually change as the book goes on, and yes, it will get messier. Who doesn’t love mess in their stories though, and if the characters can look pretty while facing conflict…Well, that’s just a lot of beloved comics and shows, ain’t it? [Laughs]
8. Let’s talk about monsters. Leviathans. Behemoths! [Laughs] We’re still early in the telling of your story, but it seems to me that the monstrous hulk that lurks in Greyson and Wren’s future might serve as a visceral reaction to all the hurt they’ve endured in life, a means to both protect or even defend themselves. What do monsters, hulks, or giants represent to you personally? Are they saviors or slayers?
TB: Why can’t they be both? [Laughs] When I was a kid, I was terrified of the Devil. He was the monster that kept me up at night. And I’d pray before sleep for God to put his angels in every corner of every room in my house to keep the demons at bay. And I have very visceral memories of this, the terror I felt of this invisible—mental—battleground. But this fear wasn’t natural, it wasn’t born with me. I was told stories by my church, by my parents, and by my friends, and those stories took root. I don’t think I’ll ever shake them; they’re buried too deep. And, looking back, that’s pretty horrific to put a child through! I could’ve been sleeping soundly to dreams of unicorns and ice cream, but instead, I was terrorized by burning pits and horned beasts! [Laughs] Needless to say, it all got much, much worse when I realized I was gay. When I realized that I was the monster that I had always feared.
The stories I was told also taught me that salvation was made possible through the blood of Jesus Christ, but that the choice lay with me. In this way, my salvation rested solely in my hands. And yet, at the same time, I was doomed by my queer soul. So, yeah. I grew up with a pretty monstrous battle waging in my soul, and I was my own savior, my own slayer.
NR: It depends on context, but I personally love monsters who are tragic beings of the human condition. Ones who find help to eventually see the sun, maybe for the last time? I love bittersweet stories! Flipping the script on a classically labeled enemy, whether it be a monster or hulk, and seeing them as more human will always be a favorite theme of mine. But also who doesn’t love a gnarly horror monster or a mythological beast that heroes have to face? I love the whole spectrum of monsters and what they can be!
9. What monsters in fiction or folklore have you found the most fascinating? Have these beasts influenced Behold, Behemoth in any substantial way?
TB: I love vampires, but who doesn’t? I love my merry Marvel mutants, who are definitely monsters. They are as terrifying as they are intoxicating. More recently, I’ve been loving some cosmic horror with its mind- and earth-shattering monsters—which are clearly influencing Behold, Behemoth more than anything else. There really is nothing more terrifying than the impending doom of *motions around* everything.
NR: Too many to name and some whose names I’ve forgotten. Is that part of their trickery? I think they all play an inspirational part as I try and bring an original look and presence to this book. To our Behemoth.
10. What monsters do you slay in your day-to-day lives? I’m often locked in a perpetual war against the Beast of Chicago Traffic.
TB: Honestly? Deadlines. But I am still an apprentice hunter, forever training and hoping to one day defeat these beasts for good!
NR: This comic is aptly named because I think it’s my current monster. One which I love! It’s just been a very long time since I handled all the art on a book, and it’s my current beast to slay! [Laughs] Maybe “deadlines” Is a better name to give the monster!
Behold Behemoth #1 is in stores now. Issue #2 drops December 7. For purchasing information, hit up your local comic shop.
Check out this 5-page preview of Behold Behemoth #1, courtesy of BOOM! Studios:
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