Immortalis Creators Talk About Bringing The Full First Collection of Fantasy Series To Markosia

Immortalis Creators Talk About Bringing The Full First Collection of Fantasy Series To Markosia

UK independent publisher Markosia is set to release Immortalis, a captivating supernatural fantasy series co-created and written by Rion Mosley and Shawn Lewis. The series boasts artwork by Ben Perkins, Rahmad Wisnu, Miguel Galindo, and Juan Salcedo, with colors brought to life by Ben Perkins, Fabrizio Costagliola, and Indy Marludzy and letters by Amal Desai and Ben Perkins.

Markosia describes the Immortalis as:

Tam Montefiore, born in 1813, is destined to become the one true Deicide in the war between heaven and hell and the old gods of myth. Following false prophecies and her own beliefs, she unexpectedly finds herself 200 years in the future, under the guidance and protection of an unfamiliar team that she may struggle to trust. Encountering familiar enemies and loves from her past, she must grapple with the true desires driving her to save the world.

We had the chance to speak with the creators Shawn Lewis and Rion Mosley about Immortalis and how the fantasy series found life. Immortalis is available at your favorite local comic shop now and you can find it on the Markosia website. Check out the interview below:

Thanks for talking with us! Can you tell us a bit about yourselves? 

Shawn Lewis: Hi, my name is Shawn Lewis, currently out of Colorado. I started writing comics in 2005 through 2009, took a hiatus, and was then drawn back into it by an idea Mosley had for an ongoing series, which ended up becoming Immortalis

Rion Mosley: Hi, I am Rion Mosley, I live in Arkansas, currently. I started reading comics at an early age and have been hooked ever since. As I grew up I wrote short stories and other things just for fun. I finally got serious about it one day and took this crazy idea I had to Shawn. And now, here we are!

Immortalis, let’s start with your elevator pitch! 

SL: Immortalis is a war between Heaven, Hell, and the Old Gods of Myth!
Rion- There isn’t a better elevator pitch than that. There is so much packed into this story, I like to think there is something for everyone.

You touch on different aspects of spirituality with the pantheon and biblical references that have been interpreted in many different ways, how did your vision of Immortalis come to be?

RM: Really, every culture has its own mythos, we wanted to pay respect to all of them, while still telling a great story. One of the guiding rules for the story is that while in our time we consider the old gods mythological, they did in life and the stories we know as myth is just a distorted view of actual history.  

From the beginning, it seems as if Immortalis was a project born with a long vision in mind. Is the collected edition a way to reach readers and prepare them for the next step of Immortalis? Any word on when we will see a second collected edition?

SL: It is! We actually just sent Markosia the next files for the 2nd graphic novel, which will contain issues 6-9. So we are hoping Markosia can put together the printing and marketing to release that one around April/ May, then follow that up with a sort-of 3-story, 121-page anthology around August/ September, and finish the year with the 4th graphic novel around December.

RM: One of the things we found out when we started pitching story ideas is that the world that we were building was vast and always growing. We know we want to tell Tam’s story because it is a pivotal time in history.

So we started telling it with the end in mind. We didn’t want a villain of the week type of story so we gave each story its own timing: one issue could be several. When it’s all said and done, we have a lot of stories still left to tell.

Every great story has a great creative team behind it. What can you tell us about the creators you had a chance to work with on Immortalis?

SL: We have been over-exceedingly blessed with many great artists, colorists, inkers, letterers, cover artists and so many talented people who have helped us bring Immortalis to life.  Rion and I have different ideas about which artist fits the Immortalis story the best,  which makes sense because art is such a subjective thing.

RM: I echo what Shawn is saying, we do feel like we’ve got some great creators around us that have really brought Immortalis to life. Shawn and I do talk about the art all the time, the uniqueness of the artist actually helps tell the story. We both grew up in one of the golden ages of comics, so while we may differ we really do just love the art!

 
Immortalis was a self-published venture for you, how did teaming up with Markosia for the collected edition come about? 

SL: It was one of those “I know a guy, who knows a guy” stories. Our letterer/ graphic designer Amal Desai, out of Chicago (who we found on Reddit, of all places, lol), was preparing his own comic, Jane Jet, for Markosia.

Amal was doing the lettering on issue 7 and reached out to us, and said he thought Immortalis would be a good fit for Markosia’s catalog. We submitted to Markosia, and soon after, we were off and running under the Markosia banner!

RM: That’s the story, we were so humbled that Markosia wanted to take a chance on us. It was something that we knew we wanted to do. When we saw their catalog, we knew that we’d found a home. It’s pretty wild to think about how this all turned out.

Lastly, what has been your favorite moment in Immortalis?

SL: So in issue #3, with art by the great Ben Perkins, when Tam is first awakened, she beats the living snot out of this bad-ass team that has been put in place to train and protect her, hinting at Tam’s as-of-yet untapped power.

But then in issue #6, Pierce, the irredeemable Vampire on the team, absolutely beats the living hell out of Tam…. until Pierce says the wrong thing to her, and then it is on!

RM: One of my favorite is in issue #2 when we first see a hint of how powerful Aldehyde can be. Usually, the shark is considered an APEX predator.  Our shark just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. I don’t think you can ask for a better few panels than that whole scene unfolding.