The new original graphic novel, Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, by journalist Dave Maass and artist Patrick Lay (with character designs by Ezra Rose and lettering by Richard Bruning) may surprise you based on the title.
What sounds like the title of a B-movie or indie comic series from the 1980s is actually based on a suppressed opera written in 1943 by two concentration camp prisoners. Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, two prisoners at Hitler’s Terezín concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, created a one-act opera, which neither of them lived to see performed, but one that lives on today.
The Berger Books and Dark Horse Comics release is one that combines dystopian sci-fi, fantasy, and zombie horror, and also shines the spotlight on a little known piece of history, honoring Kien and Ullmann in a way that they would have never dreamed of.
We spoke to Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Investigations Dave Maass about the unique project in this exclusive interview.
How did you come to find out about the original opera?
Dave Maass: In the 1990s, the music company Decca was producing new recordings of classical music suppressed by the Nazis–so called “Entartete Musik” (Degenerate Music)–including compositions from the Terezin concentration camp, where many artists, writers and musicians had been imprisoned. I just randomly happened across the introductory sampler from the series at a Best Buy in the late 90s. As an impressionable teenage punk, the defiant nature of this collection, and particularly this opera, immediately captivated me and helped steer my life and passions for social justice and free expression.
You are blending a number of genres in the graphic novel. Is it difficult to juggle all of them at once?
Maass: Luckily, the librettist Peter Kien and composer Viktor Ullmann did most of the hard work for me: they were blending genres decades and decades before genre-blending was a thing. That’s one of elements that I thought made this really perfect for a graphic novel. It required an aesthetic that would combine fantasy with retrofuturism, dystopia with the living dead. And on top of that it needed to be dark but funny. It was a challenge, of course, but a wonderful one to throw ourselves into, and I think our artists Patrick Lay and Ezra Rose knocked it out of the park.
You come from the world of journalism. What was it like writing a graphic novel?
Maass: My investigative reporting background was really key to bringing this project to fruition. I had to dig deep into the historical record, consult experts across multiple continents, figure out which institutions and people had the original copies of which documents–all to try to piece together the original intent of the authors and to solve some discrepancies between the various versions. After all that research, the writing flowed pretty smoothly. But it helped that, in addition to my news writing, I’d also covered San Diego Comic-Con for so many years, and had developed a pretty good sense of what works and doesn’t work.
What was it like collaborating with Patrick and Ezra Rose on Death Strikes?
Maass: Maybe it was comics-style beginner’s luck, but I feel like I found the perfect creative team for this project. The ball really started rolling when I came across Ezra Rose, an incredible illustrator who bridges anti-fascism with Jewish mysticism, through the queercartoonists.com database. Ezra was down to design the characters, but we really needed a sequential artist for the pages. I’d met Patrick in 2018 at Alaska Robotics Comics Camp–an annual event in Juneau–and I asked him if he’d draw up a sample page. Ezra and I agreed he nailed it.
Throughout this process, Patrick just kept stretching his skills, often way beyond my expectations. In 2022, we actually were able to travel to the Czech Republic together to gather information and reference art, and that really shows on the pages. Even now, I’ll flip through my own book and find little details Patrick inserted that I didn’t fully notice or appreciate during the editing process.
Thoughts on Death Strikes being under the Berger Books banner and a Dark Horse Comics release?
Maass: When talking to people about this project over the years, I’ve tried to impress upon them that I wanted this book to be closer to Neil Gaiman than Art Spiegelman. So, who better to make that a reality than having Karen Berger edit and publish the book under her imprint. As soon as she expressed interest, I knew that meant that we’d have the support to make an uncompromisingly fierce adaptation. Working with Dark Horse also meant that we’d be able to reach the broad audience we feel Kien and Ullmann’s story deserves.
What do you hope to communicate to readers through this narrative?
Maass: I hope the book helps people recognize the power of art, humor, storytelling and music as forms of resistance. But I also hope that it will serve as a lens through which to view current events (both today and in the future) and that it will help people recognize the threats to our common humanity posed by censorship, authoritarianism and warmongering.
Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis goes on sale in bookstores on January 23 and in comic shops on January 24, 2024. The graphic novel also contains a historical essay on the opera’s creators, the horrific circumstances in which it was created, the unlikely path of the composition’s survival, and Kien’s artwork and photographs.
