In order for that to have maximum impact, we have to first establish what is real in this world before we can break it. In “Polybius Dreams,” we’re blending the use of film making tools like mise en scène and cinematic lighting with psychedelic and suggestive illustration. Not that there aren’t comics out there that do this… That seems obvious, but when you consider unreality of people’s psychological states in horror tales, it can become something truly great. To that end, the real strength of the medium is the ability it has to convey the unreal and fantastic. Perhaps these stories are rare across all mediums, but comics is the art form I view as having the greatest capacity for storytelling, so it’s important to me to use the tools of comic art to its full potential. I like those comics a lot, but it’s rare that we see thoughtful, psychologically dense emotional horror stories. In comics, horror is often the ironic morality play popularized by “Tales From the Crypt” and classic EC comics, or over-the-top, transgressive gore fests. Horror has a wonderful capacity to take our deep rooted fears and package them in way that not only makes them more palatable, but can lead to new insight into why we feel certain ways about things. I devour it, and more, I love to intellectualize it. How do you approach horror in “Polybius Dreams” and what do you think is the most effective way to convey it in the medium? Continued belowīG: I’m a horror junky. There are so many different elements and factors that have to go right for horror to work especially in a comic book. There’s a lot to unpack there, and it’s probably worthy of a long conversation unto itself. It could just be because all the people growing up then are in the 30-40 year old range and like relive the things that fascinated them in their youth, but it might be something more about that. All the cultural touchstones of that era never really went out of style, and for whatever reason, they all seem to be really big at this point in time. Punk exploded, so did the VHS market, and of course, video games became a big deal. Looking at the 80’s, we had a boom in popular culture that we are still seeing the effects of. I remember riding my BMX bike to the arcade and using the rolled up quarters I collected on paper route to play hours of games. The culture has obviously boomed and evolved into a diverse network of gamers across the globe, but in the early days it was a local scene. I know you can play classic arcade games where they are available, but the bulk of video gaming has moved to console systems or PCs. I used to hang out in arcades a lot when I was growing up, but they’re just not around in the way they were back then. What makes the 80’s the perfect setting for this story? Does the culture/morals at the time play a big role in the story?īG: Well, for one, it’s about an arcade machine. The nostalgia and the culture around arcade machines in the 80’s seems like the obvious choice for a setting for this story. When I nailed down exactly how I wanted to approach the legend and what kind of design motif I wanted to employ to illustrate the effect the game has on its player, I knew I had something really powerful on my hands. I saw a lot of potential for a dramatization of the story that addressed the social aspects of gaming and growing up with that debate. I’ve also been fascinated by gaming history, and the debate we seem to revisit every few years about whether video games are harmful. I kept thinking about it, and very quickly realized that this story connects conspiracy theories to media studies and the study of social problems. It was late at night, I was a little drunk, and after reading about it and finding some of the home programmed interpretations of the game, I was freaked out. During class, we were talking a lot about the role that media has in society, the relationship people have to it, and the real or perceived threat that it presents. What interested you about this urban legend and so much so to create a story around it? How has it evolved in what is now “Polybius Dreams”?īenjamin Grisanti: I discovered it at a time where I was studying media in graduate school. As someone who sits on unsolved crime, no sleep, and conspiracy subreddits at their work office all day I was familiar with the idea of Polybius.
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