by Vince Brusio Occult mystery stories that ferment in 1925 when a great cataclysm caused Lower Manhattan to slip under water? An aging sidekick kept breathing past his due date through the use of magic and steampunk mechanics? Dreams that make you think you’re made of earth and clay to wreak vengeance upon the wicked? Welcome to Joe Golem: Occult Detective #1 ( SEP150037 ), the latest skeleton to fall out of Mike Mignola’s closet. Co-writer Chris Golden explains in this PREVIEWS Exclusive interview what weirdness is on the horizon for this new mini-series coming to you from Dark Horse Comics! Joe Golem: Occult Detective #1 ( SEP150037 ) is in comic shops November 4. ********** PREVIEWSworld : For those not familiar with Joe Golem, could you tell us about the character and his background? Chris Golden : Joe Golem debuted in the short story “Joe Golem and the Copper Girl,” which came out right before the novel Joe Golem And The Drowning City , both of which Mike Mignola and I wrote together, and for which Mike did illustrations. The events of the comics Joe Golem: Occult Detective , take place – for now, at least – are prior to the events of the novel. They’re occult mystery stories, yes, but the world they take place in is just as important. In 1925 there was a great cataclysm that caused Lower Manhattan to drop at the same time the sea level rose, and now everything from about 40th Street (or so) south is under twenty to thirty feet of water. Joe is a private detective in that area, which is colloquially called The Drowning City. His mentor, Simon Church, is a seriously aging Victorian detective who is keeping himself alive and functioning with a combination of magic and steampunk mechanics. He’s also keeping from Joe the truth about his own past. But Joe has these dreams, you see…dreams and visions about a time centuries ago, when a small village created a creature from earth and clay to protect it from the inhuman band of witches preying on the villagers. In his dreams, Joe *is* that golem. PREVIEWSworld : What sort of crime mysteries inspire you? Were you a reader of Ellery Queen ? The old black-and-white True Detective magazines? Chris Golden : I read some of the old magazines, stories here and there. Ellery Queen was one of them. These days my crime fiction tastes lean toward Walter Mosley and early Dennis Lehane and the hard-ass Irish crime stuff by Ken Bruen and Stuart Neville. But my major influences in that area from my youth will always be Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I love noir films, Bogart, Holmes…and you’ll see those influences in Joe. PREVIEWSworld : What inspired you to write this story? How do you identify with Joe Golem? How do you challenge him? Chris Golden : It began life as an idea burning inside the skull of Mike Mignola. He had a lot of the details worked out, then came to me and asked me to put flesh on the bones. We had already done the original Baltimore novel together, so this was a natural next step. We talked almost from the beginning about doing comics with Joe eventually. Despite his strange nature and the mysteries surrounding him, Joe is an everyman. He’s a bit of a palooka. A hardcase with a good heart. But he’s also haunted by these dreams and visions and by growing doubts about his identity and his relationship with Church, the father figure in his life. I think we all experience feelings like that as we grow up, though in Joe’s case they’re more extreme, and obviously a bit more founded in things he actually SHOULD be worried about. PREVIEWSworld : If you were online, and could geek over a scene in the story, what would you harp on? What would have you banging at the keyboard, shouting to the masses “This is what makes this story so freakin’ cool!” Chris Golden : It’s so hard to answer that question without giving important things away. I’d say two things - the dreams and visions that Joe endures that put him into the life of that golem, hunting witches centuries ago…that is friggin’ amazing. Patric Reynolds is killing it on the art. And just seeing what Patric’s doing with the Drowning City itself…. PREVIEWSworld : No question for the last point. Time to go gonzo. If you were at a panel, and were allowed to go free-style to pump up a crowd for Joe Golem, Occult Detective , what meat would you throw to the wolves? Chris Golden : Damn, what more meet do you need? Occult detective who dreams of a past as a witch-hunting stone golem, and his mentor, the Victorian steampunk magician detective, fighting monsters and solving mysteries in a sunken, flooded New York, where the streets have become canals! If you need more than that to make you pick up this comics, just give up, ‘cause your passion for coolness is already dead.