Interview: Writer Shannon Denton talks with The DeMonster about SPECTORS
Dysfunctional Teams are all the craze
Tell me if you’ve heard this one. A group of well put-together monster-hunting experts walks into a bar, each with their mysterious baggage about the past. Armed with wit, overconfidence, and just enough moxie to convince us that their ironbound stubbornness was, in actuality, sheer determination all along… they find the local threat, kick its ass, and move on.
Spectors is not that kind of story.
This is a comic book series less like The Witcher and more like James Gunn’s rendition of Creature Commandos; dysfunctional heroes doing their best to stop evil in what ends up being a fun-filled lesson on sloppily getting it done.
Created by the award-winning team of Shannon Eric Denton and David Hartman, SPECTORS is a can’t-miss story that jumps between the 1930s and the modern day. It’s a tale about legacy, along with a trio of oddballs: a supernatural investigator, a hand-for-a-sorta-gun specialist, and a general oddball monstrosity. All three who band together to stop a cult from resurrecting ancient evils.
We spoke with comic creator Shannon Eric Denton to learn more.
I went into Spectors not knowing what to expect and came out really into it. For those unfamiliar, where did the idea for the book start from?
SHANNON: When I started my production company Monster Forge I wanted to embrace and make the kinds of projects I love and while I wanted to make sure each project had its own unique voice, I didn’t want to shy away from similar projects specifically because, as a fan myself, I know it’s not like I’ll swear off werewolf movies because I’d already seen one. I’m gonna go see all the werewolf movies! Spectors is certainly not the first monster-hunters comic I’ve done and will definitely not be the last. So that’s where it started. A desire to introduce a new trio of monster hunters as we build out the Monster Forge universe.
I know there’s a lot of the old Hammer Films in here, Ditko Dr. Strange, Karloff Frankenstein, and occult mysticism all mixed in with the many pulp characters I grew up with. It’s also my belief that making comics is a team sport and I really wanted to lean into the strengths of my teammate on this book, artist David Hartman, and let his visuals influence me as much as my script guided him. It was a pretty seamless ride making this book!
There’s a lot of monster-hunting and paranormal-fighting comics in stores right now, but Spectors feels unique. What makes this different than the usual paranormal team?
SHANNON: First, thank you! That’s great to hear. I think a big part of it is that as I age and become a more experienced writer, I’m more comfortable letting my weirdness and goofball sense of black humor creep into my work. Despite having never fought monsters or cast a spell, there’s a lot of me and the people in my life and my views of people in power (and how they most often let us down) in this book.
You’re working with David Hartman on this, whose work I absolutely loved in adapting the popular Filipino comic to Netflix adaptation: Trese. I can’t think of anyone better to do spector-hunting, but in your thoughts, what does he bring to Spectors that elevates it beyond what you originally had in mind?
SHANNON: I think almost every comics writer will tell you they’d rather have a storyteller artist enhancing their work than some artist who draws a pretty picture at the expense of the story. David is a master storyteller. Working with him in TV and now comics, he knows what needs to be in the background five pages earlier to make sure the payoff actually pays off! He’s also someone who loves drawing monsters as much as I love writing them!
The team itself is wild. A doctor with a mystical dagger, a girl with a prosthetic gun arm, a straight-up powerhouse of a sort of reanimated monster/mummy kid. Why was it important for you to build a crew of oddballs instead of traditional heroes?
SHANNON: I won’t speak for you, but I think most people are oddballs. We’re all broken in different ways and in different periods of our lives. Most everyone relates to that even if we don’t want to.
To be honest, I believe many of the ones who don’t are largely without empathy for others and that makes them the biggest monster of all…they’re also often the one who thinks they’re the hero.
This is an exploration of that and how the right people around you can help you heal and the wrong people are always there to take advantage…plus our book has cool wraiths, monsters, and occultists!
Debby especially stands out immediately. The gun arm reminds me of Barrett from Final Fantasy 7. When you’re designing characters like her, what comes first—the look, the power set, or the personality?
SHANNON: I gave David a basic guide of what I wanted for Debby…strong Filipina fighter, broken in body but not spirit etc etc so we had a good idea of the kind of strong young lady she was and what she’d overcome and he came back with that gatling gun arm and asked “is this too much?” I was like “let’s make her gatling gun arm fire all kinds of stuff like she’s our Hawkeye/GreenArrow” and from there we were off and running!
There’s a deeper mythology running under all this chaos, especially with Stashwick family both Nigel and Reginald. Can you share more about the mask, the dagger, and the family history?
SHANNON: Without giving too much away, there’s a lot of legacy for Reg to deal with. He’s proud of it but it’s also a curse. Again, I hope everyone has a healthy, stable family life but as is often the case, that’s not most people’s story. He’s from a line of folks that have been in the fight and whether he wanted to inherit the family business, he did and he’s trying to navigate it in his own way…and help others not suffer in the ways he has. So that’s the most important bit…Reg working towards forgiveness from himself for his mistakes.
That’s a big part of him mentoring Debby and then bringing Ollie onto the team. The secondary is the fun in crafting how the worldbuilding works (we have a cool fact file at the back of the book explaining the dagger’s abilities to cut through the wraiths and how Reg wearing the mask keeps the dagger from driving him insane). We’re tying parts of it to our other Monster Forge books like KRAKEN and having a blast building out this world.
How much of Spectors is about fighting monsters versus inheriting the responsibilities of taking care of something you maybe didn’t ask for?
SHANNON: I tried to weave these two together because the non-stop action and suspense stem from taking care of problems/challenges you didn’t ask for…which is daily life for almost every living thing on this planet.
The creatures in this are genuinely unsettling, but the action is also just straight-up fun to watch unfold. How do you balance horror and spectacle without losing the tension?
SHANNON: David and I have made careers out of directing action sequences, so we’re both keenly aware that even the best choreography isn’t as powerful as actually caring about and rooting for your character. We’re both heavily influenced by Sam Raimi…he can terrify you and make you laugh within the same minute because he knows how to emotionally invest you first.
Horror thrives on uncertainty and restraint, while spectacle leans toward scale and revelation, so the challenge is in managing that push and pull. For us, that meant preserving tension in the quiet moments and not losing it once the spectacle kicks in…by staying grounded in the character’s perspective and never fully giving the audience all the information at once.
If someone picks up Spectors thinking it’s just another ghost-hunting comic, what’s the moment where you think they realize, “Oh, this is something else”?
SHANNON: I think the sorority sacrifice scene is probably that point…or the cover when you see our cast. I’m just excited you alluded that this may be ‘something else’.
We really poured a lot of ‘making this a book for ourselves’ into it, hoping we’d attract some other fellow monster, horror and dark humor-loving goofballs!
Any other words you’d like to say about the series?
SHANNON: Yes! We’re very proud of SPECTORS and hoping everyone loves it as much as we do! We want to keep telling the stories of Reginald, Debby and Ollie for years to come, so please tell your friends (and local comic shop) about it! Thank you!
SPECTORS is available in stores wherever comics are sold on May 12th.