Q&A: Vincenzo Natali on his sci-fi horror graphic novel TECH: “I’m fascinated by the duality of our relationship to our technology.”

Aug 30

Award-winning filmmaker Vincenzo Natali talks to Monster Complex about his debut graphic novel lamenting the horrors of humans misusing alien technology.

What would humans do if they got ahold of alien technology? In Vincenzo Natali’s graphic novel TECH, they’d exploit it for profit. TECH furthers Natali’s passion for sci-fi horror into the realm of literary fiction. The writer/artist told us that TECH revolves around “how technology is co-opted by the street and how it is often used in ways that it was not originally intended.”

Vincenzo Natali is a wildly successful director and screenwriter, whose credits include the cult hits Cube and Splice. His talents have been displayed across multiple outlets, including helming episodes of 2020’s The Stand miniseries and, most recently, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Amazon Prime’s adaptation of William Gibson’s The Peripheral.

In our exclusive interview with Natali, he explains the idea that drove the story, how his experiences as a filmmaker impacted the comic, and reveals the storytellers who inspired him.

About the graphic novel

TECH explores a not-too-distant future in which mankind has cracked the code for alien engineering. Obtaining such insight carries a hefty price tag that Earth’s miscreants are willing to pay—and lowly courier Shel can deliver.

Business is booming, but it’s a dangerous occupation; one that she would’ve abandoned long ago if not for her daughter’s expensive medical treatments. Unbeknownst to Shel, however, is that the same secrets she’s peddling on the black market are the very key to living the life she so desperately yearns for.

Find TECH on Amazon.

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Interview with Vincenzo Natali about the sci-fi horror graphic novel TECH

Q: Did I understand the credits correctly—you did the story and art yourself? (Or were there others involved?)

Just me and my iPad Pro. I have to say it’s such an extraordinary time that one person like me, who is not a professional comic book artist, can work at a professional level. I would never have been able to do this with traditional means of pen and paper.

The digital tools make it much faster—layout, inking, coloring, lettering, the whole thing would have taken me twice as long the old fashioned way. In fact, I would not have even attempted it.

Q: What inspired the story in TECH? Was there a particular hook or angle driving you to write it?

I’m fascinated by the duality of our relationship to our technology. The aforementioned iPad being a perfect example, which made this comic possible by supercharging whatever merger talents I have as an artist.

On the other hand, social media and all the other uses that this thing has can be a massive time-suck, not to mention how detrimental it is to our collective mental health. And don’t even get me started by the thorny path that AI seems to be paving for us. Often it seems that the technology is leading us rather than the other way around.

In TECH that paradigm is exaggerated by providing an extraterrestrial source for the tech that the main character Shel is dealing with. In her case, it is both empowering her and killing her.

Q: You are a creator whose experience now includes film AND comics. To what extent are you pulling on the same artistic skills vs these are different art forms?

Well, I am a failed comic book artist. That was my first love as kid. My desire to make movies came after. But the two mediums have always been closely related.

And an important part of my process as a director of movies and TV is storyboarding, which is a kind of comic book of what you are going to shoot. At the end of the day, it’s all visual narrative storytelling. The big difference between the two is that film also incorporates time into the equation, so it’s more of experiential medium than a comic could ever be.

Part of what drove me to take a crack at a graphic novel is that with every film or TV episode I shoot, I personally draw every scene myself. And in a very short amount of time (because prep is always short). The drawings are very simple, but still the principle remains the same as drawing a comic book.

Of course, I had a rude awaking as to how long it would actually take me to do a real comic. I have been working on TECH on and off for the past five years.

Q: There are sections of TECH that are perfect for comics—being able to see what is happening while the narration explains this world. When you were making this graphic novel, how consciously were you drawing this line vs you were just telling the story (as opposed to thinking about how it would be told)?

I tend to write stories for a subjective POV. This is Shel’s story and I wanted to keep in lockstep with her emotional journey. She has tremendous guilt over the disability that her child has suffered as a result of her exposure to these alien modules. So, even though there is a high-concept sci-fi conceit in play, TECH boils down to these very simple familial connections. That really helped me keep the story grounded and at a street level, which is where Shel lives and operates.

Q: TECH is so full of ideas – how this future technology interacts, how relationships affect one’s choices, how scary this world is—it would totally make sense to flesh it out for adaptations like a novel or something onscreen. But given how much TECH took advantage of what’s great about comics, any other medium would need you to tell the story differently. As you were making this graphic novel, were you also thinking about other versions of this story, or how much were you focused on, “This is what I’m doing right now?”

I approached TECH strictly as a graphic novel. At no point did I think, How would this adapt to a movie or a TV show?

It was actually liberating to be able to give Shel an internal monologue, which is generally frowned on in movies (although there are notable exceptions). Also comics and literature in general permits the writer to digress and to jump around in time more than one would in a movie. It’s just more plastic and open to a looser kind of storytelling. Film is really unforgiving that way. Every scene is meant to propel the story.

This permitted me to write it in a more organic way than I would a script. I really didn’t know where the narrative was heading when I started. I would thumbnail sixty pages, draw them, and then take a break and let that chapter inform the next. So it was very playful and fun for me. There was no oversight, no studio, no approvals that I normally face in film and TV. I hope that spirit translates into the finished product.

Q: A lot of what kept me reading TECH was learning about the jigsaw puzzle of this world and how it all works and trying to figure out where it was all going. What inspired your unique angle for this futuristic science fiction crime drama?

Well, I am a student of William Gibson, who is one of the great visionaries and philosophers of our technological evolution (or de-evolution). So TECH owes a huge debt to him. One of the things that Gibson is very good at is understanding is how technology is co-opted by the street and how it is often used in ways that it was not originally intended.

The central conceit of TECH is that if we received a signal of extraterrestrial origin, we would somehow find a way to commodify it. Usually that kind of thing as it’s represented in movies like Contact or 2001: A Space Odyssey is as a big spiritual, intellectual realization for humanity. But I tend to think we would just use it make money.

Q: Was this your first graphic novel? Were there any comics creators or stories that inspired you? (Or were you pulling more from your film background?)

I’m completely indebted to the European artists like Jean Giraud (Moebius), Enki Bilal and Philippe Druillet. Also Tsutumo Nihei (Japan) is a big inspiration. These guys all do adult science fiction that flirts with the surreal. And they are all brilliant artists (which I very much am not). But I used them as my North Star drawing TECH.

Q: What are the best ways that readers can connect with you or keep up with your author news?

I am on Twitter: @Vincenzo_Natali. Also I have an archive of scripts and art and various things that you can find at vincenzo-natali.com.

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Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/