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DF Interview: Emily Whitten helps tiny adventurers team up to combat an evil threat in ‘The Underfoot Vol. 2: Into the Sun’ OGN

In The Underfoot Vol. 2: Into the Sun, H.A.M. has joined forces with H.A.P., using their differing gifts and combined knowledge to explore new territory and aid “clients” with problems both on land and in the Great Wide above. After priceless Giants-That-Were artifacts vanish from storage and one of their allies is double-crossed by deadly “stingers,” H.A.M. and H.A.P. find themselves at the center of a plot far more sinister than anything they’ve faced before. But it’s not just supplies that have gone missing; hamsters have begun disappearing too. The mysterious dots are finally connected when a third hamster colony arrives, bringing clues that reveal an insidious plan of annihilation by Hashak, leader of the “scales” and sworn enemy of the “fur.” Soon, Hashak will use the Giants’ deadly technology and the labor of kidnapped hamsters to complete her secret weapon. Will the three allied hamster hordes succeed in their most dangerous mission yet, or will everything — and everyone — they know succumb to Hashak’s terrible scheme?

From Oni Press comes the second volume in the epic sci-fi series, The Underfoot, written by Emily Whitten and Ben Fisher with illustrations by Michelle Nguyen. DF discussed the OGN with co-scribe Emily Whitten.

Dynamic Forces: Emily, before we get into The Underfoot saga proper, tell readers how you became interested in writing, and comics writing.

Emily Whitten: I was fortunate to grow up in a home with many books, an appreciation of storytelling, and encouragement to read and to develop my writing skills and understanding of language and literature. Also fortunately, there were not limitations put on the types of books I could read, so I read books for all ages on the various family shelves -- everything from classics to contemporary fiction to non-fiction to poetry to sci-fi and fantasy. Reading stories I loved made me want to write stories that others might love too.

Education, curiosity and example also played a part in my desire to learn the craft of writing. My parents have both been educators, and my mother for many years taught AP English and British literature. I would read books she had in her study or was teaching, and then talk with her about what I read, in what I later realized were spontaneous sessions of literary analysis spurred by curiosity. My two older sisters, both of whom had many books I could read, are imaginative and enjoy creative writing. One of them is a published author and award-winning poet. Both sisters were involved during their school years in the high school literary magazine – so of course, I thought that must be a pretty neat thing; and when I got to high school, I knew that was a possibility for me, and made efforts to be involved and published in the magazine. I was also encouraged to submit my work to various competitions; and winning writing awards certainly inspired me to keep working on my craft! Having positive examples, encouragement and support from family, teachers, and others was very valuable; but also, I just always enjoyed the process of writing; and of learning new forms of writing, including short stories, poems, essays, legal briefs and, eventually, comics.

As for comics, apart from a few Archie Digests of my sister’s that I read as a child, I didn’t read comics until I was out of law school; but I did watch a lot of comics characters on TV! The X-Men and Batman Animated Series cartoons come to mind. I also watched the Christopher Reeve Superman movie and Lone Ranger TV show with my dad at a young age, and those really left an impression. Once I started reading comics as an adult, and going to conventions and meeting other creators, I began to appreciate the benefits of comics as a creative form – including the way you can tell intricate stories in deeper ways due to the combination of words, art and unique format.

DF: What was the inspiration for this graphic novel series? Is it something your co-writer Ben Fisher and you created together?

Emily Whitten: The Underfoot is definitely a shared creation. Ben and I met while I was engaged in one of my other forms of writing – journalism. I had received for review an earlier comic Ben wrote, a miniseries called Splitsville, with great art by my friend Kevin Stokes. It was funny, with a clever concept, and I really liked it, so I gave it a positive review and tagged Ben in it on Twitter. Ben being Ben, he discovered my other Twitter account, in which my pet hamster, Bitty Miss Izzy, recounted her daily adventures; and soon, two little hamsters were talking to each other on Twitter! After getting to know each other through the magic of the internet, discovering we both have a love for humor and for intricate (and post-apocalyptic) story scenarios, and throwing around a whole bunch of ideas about the adventures these hamsters could have together, the inspiration for The Underfoot was born.

DF: I know that Into the Sun is the second volume in this OGN series. For those who have been under a rock, can you summarize the happenings in the first volume, The Mighty Deep, for readers? Tell us a little about this world you have built.

Emily Whitten: The Underfoot takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. and world, where all humans have disappeared, leaving groups of animals with increased intelligence to struggle for survival in the aftermath of whatever may have caused this change in circumstances. Our first volume, The Mighty Deep, focuses on a specific group of hamsters living in a partially-submerged burrow on the edge of the Constitution Gardens in D.C. – the Hamster Aquatic Mercenaries, or H.A.M. These furry li’l friends have special abilities in swimming and other water activities, and also variations to their natural traits that make them more adaptable to water. They believe that the Giants-That-Were gave them these “gifts” before the Giants’ disappearance, and they use their gifts, and their understanding of scientific knowledge and artifacts left by the Giants, in their daily lives.

The H.A.M. survive in the wider world through teamwork and through completing tasks most suited to their small stature and unique skills in exchange for payment from other creatures. However, despite the “mercenary” in their title, they have a strong sense of what’s right and just, and would generally align on the “good” end of the spectrum on a D&D chart. In The Mighty Deep, the task the H.A.M. have taken on is to stop a group of nefarious beavers from flooding a river and causing badgers to be washed out of their homes. At the same time, the H.A.M. are missing a crucial teammate for this task and are seeking a replacement, and they also face a threat at home, as the glowing mushrooms that help provide energy and safety for their burrow are being rapidly depleted, with no hope for quick regrowth. As their adventure progresses, characters come into their own and learn about friendship and responsibility, the H.A.M. learn more about their own somewhat mysterious history, and we discover along with them that the world they think they know is much wider, and contains more variety, than they could ever have imagined.

Emily Whitten: Into the Sun brings back many of the characters we met in The Mighty Deep, and focuses not only on the original burrow of H.A.M., but also on the allies they met towards the end of Volume 1 – the Hamster Airborne Paratroopers, or H.A.P.! These new friends have different traits and abilities than the H.A.M., and are skilled in using drones and blimps, as well as gliders and parachutes. In The Mighty Deep, along with H.A.M. protagonists like best friends Ruby and Mac, Matriarch Luciana, teacher Wynton, outcast Beck, Aegis Tallis, sharpshooter Buddy, farseer twins Ani and Tori, and demolitionist Rem, we briefly met the H.A.P. Overseer Ursula, and a couple of her team, pilot Neil and sharpshooter Terry.

In Into the Sun, we get to explore the H.A.P. way of life, and see the relationships between the characters we met in Volume 1 develop. We also meet our mystery-solving H.A.P. team Jules and Gibson (who may share a slight resemblance to a historically beloved crime-solving duo), engineer Kurt, and more. As is usually the case with an ensemble cast like ours, many members of the teams get their individual chances to shine or have their stories told as we follow them on their shared journeys.

Emily Whitten: In Into the Sun, H.A.M. and H.A.P. are occupied with expanding their communications network to more efficiently work together, when they discover that gathered artifacts from the Giants-That-Were, and also hamsters, have been stolen away from the burrows. New allies reveal that the iguana Hashak, a sworn enemy of the “fur” who the hamsters first fought in The Mighty Deep, is behind the thefts -- and a larger plan of animal annihilation! The hamster hordes must band together to see if they can put a halt to the construction of her secret weapon before Hashak completes her terrible scheme.

DF: All writers are readers (I hope). As an attorney, I KNOW you are a reader, LOL. Through a reader’s lens, what would you like a reader to take away from Into the Sun?

Emily Whitten: As a reader, I love being immersed in the story, feeling a connection to the characters, being excited about what might happen, and feeling like the world I am reading about is “real” – at least somewhere out there in the multiverse. I also enjoy learning more about myself or seeing new perspectives or ways of thinking through the books I read. And I like books that are fun, make me laugh, teach me something, or make me think. So if our readers experience any of that, great! For this series and Into the Sun in particular, I think the story shows the value of teamwork, being open to new ideas and understanding that there is always more to learn, embracing change, and caring about each other and the world. I hope readers find that on the page. Most importantly, I want readers to enjoy the journey we are taking them on, and take away from the books whatever our creation, combined with their own experiences, causes them to feel.

DF: Tell us about your two collaborations: co-writing with Ben and working with artist Michelle Nguyen.

Emily Whitten: Writing with Ben is a lot of fun. We work together on figuring out the plots for each story and where we want them to go, scripting and editing, and trying to ensure that we aren’t leaving threads hanging in a pretty complex story. We both enjoy world-building and character development, and I think one of our strengths is building on each others’ ideas, rather than trying to pull too hard in one direction or another. For the way we’ve constructed this particular series with interstitial science and history pages, it’s also great to work together on using those real science and history elements we want to include to enhance the story we are telling about our little adventurers.

As primarily a writer going into the comics creation process, I’ve learned a lot from Michelle. She’s been great about ensuring we as writers understand what goes into her work and process, and what information we can give that will be most useful to her. Her art has been a great fit for our story from the start and only continues to add depth to it – the cover on Into the Sun, for instance, is a striking example of the beautiful and dynamic art she can create. I love seeing what Michelle does with our descriptions and characterizations, and the writing is enhanced by the visuals she brings to the work, which helps bring together the vast but also small world our characters inhabit.

DF: Emily, what other projects in which you are involved can you tell readers about? Inside or outside comics.

Emily Whitten: I’m currently working on another fiction writing project that is still nascent and not ready for sharing yet. But in the meantime, I continue to use various platforms to talk about creative and genre work I’m enjoying. At the moment, I’m doing a YouTube Live weekly episode discussion of American Gods Season 3 over at Movers & Shakers Unlimited, every Sunday at 6 PM Eastern (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaV9lIaWd7sd5QBQi9IObHZBqtc3l9nhx), and I’m a recurring guest on the Fantastic Forum Radio Show (https://www.greatgeekrefuge.com/the-fantastic-forum-podcast), where we talk about all sorts of genre and pop culture creations and news. Readers can also keep up with my work and find me on social media via my website (https://www.theemilyesse.com/). Thanks for asking!

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Emily Whitten for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer our questions. The Underfoot Vol 2: Into the Sun OGN from Oni Press is slated to be released April 21^st!

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