DF Interview: Ed Brisson introduces a piece of the world no one remembers in ‘The Displaced’

By Byron Brewer

The city of Oshawa, Ontario has vanished without a trace. Even worse, nobody remembers it or the 170,000 missing residents that disappeared along with it. As the survivors also fall into the forgotten, they must seek each other out, if they hope to have any chance of surviving in a world where no one believes they exist.

Writer Ed Brisson (Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Predator), artist Luca Casalanguida (Regarding the Matter of Oswald's Body, James Bond), and colorist Dee Cunniffe (Barnstormers, Crossover) pose the question... how can you feel connected to reality or each other if, by all veritable means, you don't exist?

Find out as I discuss the coming comic The Displaced with scribe Ed Brisson.

Byron Brewer: Ed, this limited series The Displaced seems to have a sort of Twilight Zone vibe to it. What was the inspiration for the story and is this something recent or has it been brewing on the Brisson backburner awhile?

Ed Brisson: I love Twilight Zone and grew up watching it. There’s a lot about that style of storytelling that’s hardcoded into my own DNA, I think.

The inspiration for The Displaced came from my own relationship with Oshawa, Ontario. I grew up in Oshawa, but moved across the country as a teenager. Every time I managed to get back to Oshawa to visit, it felt like I was losing my connection to it. Things would change – the theater I remember going to was replaced by a newer theater; the mall was completely renovated, almost unrecognizable on the inside; the field I used to play in was developed into an outdoor mall; and on and on. The Oshawa of my childhood was vanishing. So, it was my own feelings of isolation, of being a stranger in a place where I’d lived most of my life, that really kicked off the germ of the idea for this book. The Displaced takes that feeling and brings it to the extreme. Oshawa, quite literally, vanishes.

I first came up with the idea for The Displaced (initially just called Oshawa) back in 2008. I had the concept and I had a cast, but knew that there was still something missing – I just didn’t know what it was. By 2011, I had a version of it that was nearly my first published work, but I pulled it back because it still didn’t feel ready. In the twelve years since, I’ve been pulling it out of my digital drawer and plucking away at it, trying to figure it out. It wasn’t until early 2023 that I felt all the pieces had fallen into place properly. Once I had that, I got back into working it out and that’s when I reached out to Luca about working on it.

Byron: Can you set the scene for us, give us a taste of the canvas for the book?

Ed Brisson: The real short-and-sweet of it is this: Oshawa and its 170,000 residents vanish one night. No one knows where it’s gone or what happened to it. For a week, it dominates the new cycles. But, as the news fades, so do people’s memories, until Oshawa is, quite literally, forgotten.

The story is about the residents of Oshawa who were, for one reason or another, outside of the city when the city was sucked into the earth. It’s about their struggle to survive, while trying to come to grips with everything that’s happened to them.

Byron: With the majority of the population vanished, can you introduce here your key survivors and a little about them?

Ed Brisson: Our main cast consists of Emmett, a 30-something whose life has consisted mostly of taking care of his ailing dad and working dead end jobs; Gabby who’s lost her daughter and husband; Paige and Tavis, a couple of teenage runaways, caught up in the chaos; and Harold, an octogenarian who may hold the answers to everything that’s been happening.

Each of them carries their own feelings about what’s happened. For some, it’s a chance at a fresh start, while others have lost everything. All of them will be struggling with these feelings, while also trying to figure out how to survive in this new reality they find themselves in.

Byron: The survivors “must seek each other out” for some reason to continue their own existence. Will this be like a mass coming together as in The Shining?

Ed Brisson: I’m not sure I remember that part of The Shining, so forgive me if I say it isn’t and it is.

In the book, the survivors – that is, those left after Oshawa disappears – are initially brought together by authorities because they were, more or less, refuges. They had no where to go. Their homes and families are all gone, so they’re brought together in an emergency triage center. This is where they first meet.

But, yes, later on, there is definitely a pull toward one another. A need to stay together that I won’t get too deeply into – I want to keep some surprises for the reader.

Byron: And I take it even those with familial connections to the survivors are by and by forgetting them? Things such as records, etc. on the survivors as well as the Oshawa population are disappearing as well?

Ed Brisson: Correct. Our survivors no longer, by any verifiable means, exist. They’re still walking and talking and interacting with one another, but there is no record of them having ever existed. People have forgotten them and can’t form new memories of them. They no longer have driver’s licenses, bank accounts, etc. They can’t get a job, rent a home, open a bank account. They have nothing.

Byron: Man, that is so creepy just to think about!… No spoilers here, of course, but will readers be fed clues through the course of the 5-issue miniseries which might help us put together a puzzle of what has occurred? Does The Displaced have that tool of mystery about it?

Ed Brisson: Yes, for sure. Although one of the things I’ve focused on within the book – something that’s far more interesting to me and hopefully the reader – is not how things happened, but how people survive after it’s happened. Going back to the Twilight Zone mention [we discussed], one of the things that I love about the show is that people are presented with a situation, and they have to adapt. Rarely do they take the time to explain why a man is walking door to door with a box that can kill someone you don’t know, or why there’s a gremlin on the wing of an airplane. Ultimately, I think answering the “why” of those would rob the stories of what makes them so good. Same with The Displaced, I don’t want to hold people captive for some sort of answer, but rather want to establish that this event has happened and now we have to figure out how we’re going to survive it.

Byron: Very intriguing. …Talk about the awesome art of Luca Casalanguida and Dee Cunniffe.

Ed Brisson: Luca is an artist I’ve been wanting to work with ever since first seeing his work on Lost Soldiers a few years back. He’s done such an incredible job in bringing these characters to life, infusing their designs with so much of their personality. It’s been an incredibly smooth process and I couldn’t be happier to have him on board.

Dee and I have been talking for a few years about working together, it was just a matter of timing and finding the right project. The wait was worth it -- his sense of color is unparalleled and really sells this world that we’re trying to build here.

We’ve also got Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou on letters, who is great, as always. I spent a decade-plus lettering comics and have trouble letting go of it, but Hass is so much better than I ever was. It’s a real privilege to have him on board.

Byron: Ed, what other projects can we be expecting from you in the coming days?

Ed Brisson: Currently, my last issue of Alpha Flight is about to drop. As a Canadian, that was a real bucket list item for me. I have a pretty quiet January, but come back swinging with both The Displaced and Predator: The Last Hunt coming out in February. As always, I have a handful of projects in development that I can’t talk about just yet, but big things are coming in 2024.

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Ed Brisson for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. The Displaced #1 from BOOM! Studios is slated to be on sale Feb. 14, 2024!

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