It’s you and me against the worlds. Mariko and Rem have been together for years, but the two are worlds apart. Though Mariko dreams of staying together forever, the universe seems to have other plans. With Rem leaving for a new job on The Moon of Plenty, Mariko makes a last-ditch effort to save their relationship–no matter the cost… But are these two really as perfect for each other as they think?
We had the chance to sit with Matthew Erman and Liana Kangas, the creative minds behind our upcoming original graphic novel Mariko Between Worlds, about the story behind Mariko Between Worlds, their inspirations, and more!
Check out our full interview below!
Q: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions, Matt and Liana! Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
MATTHEW: I’m a happy father and comic writer from Columbus, Ohio. Before that I was a janitor, worked at a sex shop and did social media for t-shirt companies and frozen asian food manufacturers. My past work has includes the horror comic series Long Lost and Witchblood, both with my wife Lisa Sterle. If you’ve been a fan of Mad Cave over the years, I also wrote Terminal Punks with art by Shelby Criswell and letters by Micah Meyers.
LIANA: I’m a full-time comic creator and cover artist in Memphis! I used to move a lot, but that gives me a ton of time to work on original stories and spend a ton of time with my hobbies like drumming, listening to my vinyl collection and hang out with my dogs. I have a lot of really fun series I’ve worked on in the past, mostly bizarre, sci-fi, character focused and horror stuff (which is why Matthew and I get along GREAT!) like KNOW YOUR STATION, TRVE KVLT, and SHE SAID DESTROY. I’ve also done a ton of cool cover work for series like Star Trek, Stranger Things and Star Wars!
Q: What is your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing comics?
MATTHEW: Lately, it’s been a ton of film/tv — all types. Lots of shot-on-video stuff from the 80’s when that became real accessible. Shudder has been incredible getting to dive into international genre horror and old stuff as well. This year has also been really incredible for storytelling in videogaming. I also watch a ton of professional wrestling, specifically AEW but I’m not sure how much that plays into my work. Anyway, Tony Khan should hire me to write storylines for him.
LIANA: Matthew is also leaving out what rippin’ playlists he makes for his collaborators.
Q: In Mariko Between Worlds, we follow Mariko and Rem on one wild, last night out before they break up for good. What was your biggest inspiration in creating this story?
MATTHEW: I’d been watching a ton of 90 Day Fiance during the pandemic and when Mad Cave pitched me this story about a romance not working out in some kind of wild mall and getting to work with Liana who I’ve been wanting to work with for ages, it seemed like the perfect project to kind of mash all of that together. So that’s literally what we did and now this is a book and I can’t really believe how these things happen sometimes.
LIANA: This book truly sometimes feels like a fever dream with the timeline of how and when we made it, but I think that just adds to how perfectly it fits the story.
Q: What got you into comics?
MATTHEW: They’ve just literally always been around, wasn’t anything in particular in the same way that music just is a thing. Sometimes I’m really into reading them and other times I take long, unstructured breaks from them, but they’re always around me in the house.
LIANA: Archie Digests in the grocery store, weird indie books like JTHM that were passed around in highschool, but mostly manga, originally. It’s what allowed me to spend hours sitting in Barnes and Noble and perusing the graphic novel section eventually discovering direct market and ogns. Eventually, I even worked at a shop for back issues essentially and going to conventions, and it all kind of spiraled from there.
Q: Which character in Mariko Between Worlds character do you connect with most?
MATTHEW: I’m pretty sure that I wrote Rem as a kind of toxic version of myself. So there’s that.
LIANA: I think Mariko, weirdly. Seeing her struggles with both what she wants and how she is really struck with how difficult decision making is for her is very much a trait I saw in myself as a young adult. She struggles a lot with being direct and communicating what she wants and it’s likely because she doesn’t know where to start with herself, first, which is sort of a major theme in the book. I swear, Matt and I have much less soul crushing answers than this most of the time.
Q: What do you hope for people to take away from reading Mariko Between Worlds?
MATTHEW: That life is stupid and fun and random and needlessly complicated and that those things blur the definitions of what makes anyone who they are to the point that you can get so swallowed with the things going on around you that you lose your identity to the waves of
LIANA: That maybe you don’t always trust a CEO whos a duck, that maybe, it’s okay to focus on yourself. Maybe avoid weird portals? It’s okay to be messy, it’s totally normal.
Q: In Mariko Between Worlds, you’ve created a rich sci-fi world filled with brightly colored portals and aliens from all corners of the galaxy. Can you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
LIANA: We got to work with Lisa Sterle at the beginning of the inception on character designs which was a huge springboard for how the world came to life. She worked on Mariko and Rem first, and the rest sort of bloomed from there. Matt and Lisa and I had a lot of fun discussions about media to watch and I even went back and did a deep dive on a lot of my favorite animes and animated movies to get some fun ideas for making the series as bizarre and unhinged and weird as possible. (Matthew definitely had a heavy hand in helping out. You would not believe my reaction when I read about The Psychic Refrigerator. It unlocked a deepset area of my brain that truly felt like there were no boundaries in what we could do for this book.)
MATTHEW: Whatever the writing version of throwing spaghetti at a wall is and then writing a story based on what patterns the mess makes.
Q: Who/what are your biggest influences as a creator?
LIANA: I’ve been enjoying a lot of indie illustrators recently but going back and studying and having fun enjoying the work of Angelo Stano, Cliff Chiang and Jean Paul Leon are ones that circle in my brain currently. When I was drawing this book I was probably reading a lot of Leonardo Remero (I think I was trying to read fun things like Kate Bishop and things at the time!)
MATTHEW: Pass.
LIANA: Matthew was going to write me down but got embarrassed. I get it.
Q: What are your favorite stories/artists/genres?
LIANA: I’m a big horror fan, mystery/noir, crime and surprisingly, romance. I read a lot of slice of life and romance books, but the majority of what I read is horror.
MATTHEW: Anything that can surprise me. I like to be stung with unexpected moments. I just watched Apocalypto, the Mel Gibson movie made right after his summer of being problematic and offensively anti-Semitic, and there’s a scene where a baby is born in a 20 ft. pit of water and what can I say other “wow wasn’t expecting that.” It’s a strange and incredible movie, worth a watch for sure though. Don’t let Mel Gibson ruin the work of thousands of people, a majority of whom were indigenous.
Q: Any upcoming projects we should know about?
LIANA: I have a few books coming out this year! My fast food cult thriller, TRVE KVLT with IDW Publishing is out in August, alongside my space murder mystery, KNOW YOUR STATION with Boom Studios is coming out right behind it! I have some fun Chilling Adventures one shot news this upcoming fall season as well.
MATTHEW: I have a ton of stuff hitting shelves in 2024, mostly unannounced.
Q: Any cons you’ll be attending in the near future?
LIANA: You can find me this year at San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, and hopefully a few more.
MATTHEW: Nope!
LIANA: He’s at dad-con 2023.
Q: Anything else you’d like to share with us?
LIANA: Good luck, and don’t piss off Frisbee!
MATTHEW: Support the strikes in Hollywood and take care of yourself.
Mariko Between Worlds is currently available on the Mad Cave Studios website for pre-order, and will be available at your favorite local comic shop or digital comic reader on October 11th, 2023!
Mad Cave Studios is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded by Mark London in 2014 driven by madness and committed to quality. For additional information, visit madcavestudios.com.
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