Sometimes a series comes with an artist attached to it but, in my experience at Vertigo, that’s pretty rare. Usually I have to work closely with the writer to get an idea of how they see the series in terms of the art – the look, style, and tone of it. I have my own ideas often but it’s always a back-and-forth since the writer is the one who has the pictures in his/her head.
 
In the case of SAUCER COUNTRY, Paul and I had some long talks about the overall “feel” of the book and knew we needed someone who was very naturalistic in style who could handle a lot of the “acting” that would be crucial to this series. Almost immediately, I thought of RYAN KELLY.
 
Having worked with him before on DMZ and NORTHLANDERS I knew he was incredibly versatile and creative and knowing well his work on NEW YORK FIVE and Local, he was amazing at tackling real characters (especially women) struggling with real issues.
 
I sent Paul some samples of his recent work and he totally flipped for it! So we called Ryan and asked for a few character sketches based on very broad strokes. He nailed them and as it happens, he’s a total alien conspiracy geek himself. As soon as we started riffing on Whitley Strieber minutiae, I knew we had our man!
 
Here are some of his first character sketches and thumbnails of the first script pages. Be sure to check out SAUCER COUNTRY #1, on sale now!
 
Peace & elbow grease,
Will Dennis

See a gallery of SAUCER COUNTRY sketches here.