Duppy Man

Casey Seijas

By Sheena McNeil
December 23, 2013

I first heard about Duppy '78 a couple years ago and was really intrigued. It got delayed, but is now slated for release around the end of January 2014. I recently had a chance to read and review Duppy '78 and interview the creator and writer, Casey Seijas. You can check out a link to my review at the end of this interview. If you're looking for a different type of ghost story, this one is worth checking out.

Sequential Tart: How did you become interested in comics? How and when did that transition in to wanting to work in the comics industry?

Casey Seijas: Like almost everyone, I grew up reading comics. No need to bore you or anyone reading this with the details about what I read, but really, I think everyone who's working in this industry has had a similar life-long love of this medium.

I suppose I started thinking about making comics a career while I was at Florida State. I landed a gig as the arts and entertainment editor at my school's newspaper (the FSView / Florida Flambeau) and treated it like it was my own fanzine for stuff I was into at the time, which included comic book reviews. Likewise, I had been a reader of Wizard magazine since it started coming out, so I set my sights on working there post-graduation. Fortunately, I managed to land an internship there and was hired on soon after. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

ST: You've been working in the comics industry for years. Why has it taken so long for us to see our first credited comic?

CS: Well, once you "break in" to comics, so to speak, you start to find out that there are a bunch of unwritten rules about what's considered professional mannerisms and what's not. One thing that was stressed very early on during my first tenure at Wizard was you do not pitch ideas to editors, no matter how well you might get along with them. You were there to be a journalist, not to use it as a platform to get your budding comic career up and running. It may sound silly to an outsider, but when you're a member of the comic press, it does make a bit of sense. The same goes for if you're an editor at a major publisher, which I also was -- granted, some folks can manage to be both a comic editor and a writer at the same time, but to me, that's basically like taking on two full time jobs at once, and likewise, jobs that require a lot of attention to detail and focus. And if I'm being honest, you rarely ever see or hear about the best editors in the business trying to be writers, and vice versa. So I guess I've always fallen into that camp -- pick a role and try and be the best at it.

That said, it's impossible to be a comic book pro and not have at least one or two ideas knocking around, whether it's for a creator owned project or a story arc for an established character, and I certainly wasn't immune to that. So once I found myself freelancing -- or rather, under-employed -- after I was laid-off from MTV Splash Page, I figured then was as good a time as any to write a script. Com.X was really the first place I thought of when it came to pitching, and fortunately, they liked the idea. Ta-dah -- I'm a comic book writer now!

ST: How did the idea for Duppy '78 come into being?

CS: I'll try and give the abridged version here. Several years back I was going through this kick where I was reading lots and lots of biographies about people I found fascinating -- Abraham Lincoln, Keith Haring, Edith Piaf, Andy Warhol, and so on. Anyway, a friend at the time recommended I read Timothy White's Catch a Fire, which was a biography of Bob Marley. Now, short of a stretch in high school, I wasn't a Marley or reggae fan at all, but I trusted my friend's judgment, so I gave it a read, and to this day it's one of my all-time favorite books -- definitely top 5, stranded-on-a-desert-island level. The thing I found fascinating about it was, most everyone has this image of Marley as a peaceful, easy-going, blazed-out guy, which he certainly was to an extent, but White goes into his upbringing in Trenchtown where you find out that the dude was a bad-ass. Like, you did not f**k with Bob!

Anyway, one of the things I discovered while reading Catch a Fire was the "Obeahman." In Rastafarian culture, for lack of a better description, Obeahman is a cross between a shaman and the little kid from The Sixth Sense. Basically, Rastafarians believe in what's called the "Duppy" -- which is a ghost that can not only haunt someone, but also cause physical harm. Obeahs -- or "Duppy Conquerors" -- have a special gift that gives them power over the Duppy, so they can basically call or repel them. I'm sure there are Rastafarians out there who could go deeper into this, but that's the gist of it.

So from there I started reading any book I could find on the subject of Duppy, Jamaica in the 1970s, and Rastafarian culture, I watched every documentary on the subject I could, listened to as much Dancehall and late 70s reggae -- really, short of growing dreads and going to Jamaica, I soaked up as much info as I could.

Also around this time, I was getting into a lot of J-horror -- specifically, Ringu and Ju-on -- which were two flicks that legitimately scared the crap out of me. So really, mixing the two concepts together kinda was a no brainer.

ST: What do you find intriguing or compelling about the Jamaican and Rastafarian cultures?

CS: It's a very secretive and very exclusive culture, so there's a lot of mystery if only because outsiders are not really allowed in. I kind of feel like I'm asking for trouble just writing a fictional story about it. But really, the mysticism about it with Obeah and the folklore -- I find that fascinating.

ST: What is a Duppy?

CS: As mentioned above, in Rastafarian culture, is a spirit of the undead; a ghost. Some Duppy are benevolent, but others are known to cause mischief, bodily harm, or worse, steal your shadow.

ST: I love that you added the supernatural element to a gritty gang story. Why did you go that route?

CS: I'm a card-carrying Dude, I love gangland stories, especially ones set in the 70s and 80s -- obviously Scarface, Mean Streets, The Mack, and on and on. Likewise, I've always loved horror -- not so much the gory, slasher stuff, that stuff is just silly, but stuff that's actually creepy -- again, Ju-on, Ringu (and to a lesser degree, The Ring), The Shining, The Exorcist, and honestly, if I had to pick the thing that creeps me out the most, it's the Black Lodge scenes from Twin Peaks. I have an irrational fear of red curtains and spotlights. So anyway, after doing all of my research of 1970s Jamaica and Rastafarian culture, the two just kinda came together in my head like peanut butter and chocolate.

ST: What are your own thoughts on the spirit world? Are Duppy (or other spirits) real?

CS: The thing I've found is that, even the most logical among us, in the back of our heads, believe in ghosts or have a story about a brush with something that was supernatural. I mean, when I go down to my building's basement, I have to turn a blind corner, and, as mature and logical as I am, I always steel myself in case I see something freaky. My mom also has a story about how once she was in an antique store and was looking at a vase, when out of nowhere she felt someone hit the back of her arm almost making her drop what she was holding and, lo and behold, no one was around. Anyway, to me personally, ghosts are the closest to "real" monsters that we have in this world. There's no such thing as vampires or werewolves or zombies, but a lot of people believe in ghosts, whether they want to admit to it or not.

ST: Did you ever consider telling the story in a different setting? If so, where?

CS: Never -- I mean, I'm not Jamaican and I'm certainly not a Rastafarian, so I'm sure I'm gonna upset at least one or two people with this, but I never considered changing the setting, it just works too well together.

ST: Why 1978?

CS: No real reason other than I guess I was influenced by a lot of the documentaries and movies I was watching at the time -- The Harder They Come, Stepping Razor: Red X, Rockers, Countryman. Plus, I kinda wanted to play off Amancay's [illustrator] strengths -- the guy has a cool, Blaxploitation style, and it just made sense.

ST: What kind of research have you done in preparation for this comic?

CS: A lot. I have way too many books on my shelf about Rastafarian culture than a 30-something white dude in Minnesota should have, not to mention bios on reggae legends and Jamaica travel guides. I also watched as many documentaries and movies as I could and did tons of online research. All told, I think I did about two years' worth of research and studying before I even started writing the book.

ST: The comic is illustrated by Amancay Nicolás Nahuelpán Bustamante and Daniel Warner. How did you end up working with them?

CS: I discovered Amancay's work through DC's Zuda line -- he had a comic called Clandestino up, and it was absolutely breathtaking. I've always loved the South American styles of comic art, and he had that in spades, but also with touches of manga and super-pop-art. So when I was looking for someone to draw my story, he was one of the first people I asked and, luckily for me, he agreed to come aboard. He's probably way too good for this though -- dude is gonna go far!

Dan and I go way back -- I remember reviewing Cocopiazo for Wizard and it's still today one of my all-time favorite comics. I don't want to call the guy a genius because I feel like that term gets thrown around a bit too much these days, but he's a phenomenal story-teller and artist in the truest sense of the word -- like, beyond comics. So Dan contacted me about a year ago and we started talking comics and how he wanted to start making them again, and we needed help with the coloring for Duppy '78, and he came on board.

It's a real treat to be working with not only these guys, but also the guys at Com.X. I'm not afraid to say it's a humbling experience for me.

ST: How does the comic go from idea in your head, to finished page?

CS: I think everyone's process is different, but for me, it all starts with a simple question: what are you into? In terms of Duppy, for me, it was an interest in the culture and ghost stories. Then I did research -- read books, watched documentaries and films, listened to music, and so on. Any writer worth the title knows you can't just hop into a subject and wing it, you have to do your homework. For Duppy, I knew there were elements I wanted to include and I had the basic plot, but it was all pretty scattered, so I basically wrote down all of the beats I wanted to hit on index cards, got a big-ass corkboard, and did what I assume most TV shows do and started piecing the story together that way. After all of this, I started writing the script. It's a process, for sure, and one that I wouldn't recommend for the hobbyists out there if you want it to be good.

ST: Why should readers pick up this mix of Jamaican crime lord drama and horror?

CS: Look, I'll admit, it's not for everyone. If you don't want to read a creepy story written in Jamaican patois where you'll have to flip to the glossary in the back to learn what the slang terms are, there's plenty of other books out there you'll probably like better. However, I'm 99% sure there's no other books out there like this -- a mixture of Jamaican crime and horror. I wrote this in the attempt to scare myself, which is no easy task, so I'm hoping it'll scare other people too. So, yeah, if you want to read a good gangland story or a good, old school horror comic, might I recommend Duppy '78?

Duppy '78 Review