What if the big questions on the nature of existence became less theoretical and more of a practical reality? That’s the question with which Benjamin J. Carp must wrestle in the upcoming comic book miniseries Benjamin from Oni Press. Written by Ben H. Winters and illustrated by Leomacs, Benjamin follows Mr. Carp, a countercultural science fiction writer who used the genre to grapple with notions of epistemology and identity. The prolific writer worked through these ideas until he succumbed to a life of drugs and excess in 1982. That should be the end of Carp’s story… if he didn’t wake up, alive and well in our world of 2025. But how? Carp is fully aware of his end. His every fiber and intuition tell him he shouldn’t be in the land of the living. As he works out this mystery—and whether he’s a ghost or clone or dream or ethereal nothing—Carp finds his speculative fiction musings meeting him head-on, making him question his own existence.
I spoke with Ben H. Winters recently about the idea behind Benjamin, the roots of modern loneliness, working with Leomacs, and what he would do if he was in Benjamin Carp’s situation.
If you—like me—grew up with and/or still read the works of countercultural writers who poked and prodded at the big “what ifs” of existence or if find yourself wondering how we know what we know while occasionally dissociating, Benjamin will most likely be your jam. Ben H. Winters’ words and Leomacs’ art look to be creating a perfect mix of the surreal and the grounded, the mundane and the urgent. Life is unsettlingly fantastic and inscrutable and Benjamin looks to understand that and embrace it unflinchingly.
FreakSugar: I read and re-read the premise of Benjamin probably half a dozen times. You and Benjamin J. Carp share professions and names, and you’re clearly concerned with epistemology and self-reflection. What kind of figurative wormholes led you to the conceit of Benjamin?
Ben H. Winters: Thanks so much, what a fun question. I’ve always been a science fiction reader (and now writer), but always more interested in the conceptual questions of the genre than the hard science of it. In particular I love books—from I, Robot to William Gibson to pretty much everything Philip K. Dick wrote—that get into the nature of existence: what does it mean to be a person? To have a consciousness? At what point does a robot become a person; what about AI? If my consciousness exists on a hard drive, is that “me”? Etc., etc., etc. So, it really struck me as interesting if a writer like that, someone who spent a whole career getting lost in these weird and unsettling and fascinating questions, where to die and then…come back. And now quite know what happened, or what he is now. So, the creative project of his life becomes the mystery he’s trying to solve now.
FS: Oni Press’ editor-in-chief Sierra Hahn described Benjamin as an examination into loneliness. What do you consider the things most likely to cut us off from the world? How do you think we crawl out of that? Do you address that in Benjamin?
BHW: Look, it’s almost cliche to say it at this point, but for us contemporary humans the phones in our pockets are massive contributors to loneliness. If we walk it back it probably started with the internet, right, this massive web that was supposed to connect us all but ultimately led us each down our own dark tunnels, connecting with our specific interests and with legions of strangers who we don’t ever really know, and who don’t ever really care about us. Combine that with this trap door we all have with us, all the time, that allows us to duck out of conversations, slide past the moment of eye contact or the hard encounter. We’re atomized—we’re each in our own little capsule. It sucks, for each of us individually, and that’s before we even get to the culture or the body politic. I think that’s all part of the story, in a low-key under-the-surface way, for sure, as is what I honestly think is the answer to it all: connection. Friendship. Hanging out with other people, in real physical reality, and seeing how that feels.
FS: I know part of the mystery of the comic is whether it’s really him who woke up or if it’s a ghost, robot, clone, or simulation. Now that the issues Mr. Carp wrestled with in his speculative fiction are now a tangible reality he has to contend with, how does he feel? He’s a man out of time and uncertain if he’s even himself. (Of course, we all deal with that at some time or another… at least I do, anyway.)
BHW: He feels cranky! What’s funny, and hopefully part of the charm of the piece, is that Benjamin facing this massive existential dilemma, he literally doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead, but he’s also just pissy. Hungry. Mad at his ex-wife, jealous of other writers. As soon as he sees Wikipedia, he skips right past being amazed at the aggregation of all human knowledge to get to being irritated at mistakes on his page. So, he’s very human, even though he might literally not be human.
FS: Leomacs’ preview art is so surreal and grounded at the same time. What is your collaboration like?
BHW: Well, I really lucked out here. I had seen a lot of Leo’s work and knew what he was capable of, so I really just wrote to the far extent of my imagination, and tried to describe on each script page what I was seeing, and then really just sat back and let him do his thing. Then, you know, they send you pages for note, and I was always like, “Uh, no notes. Wow.”
FS: If you woke up years after your death, with full knowledge of dying like Mr. Carp, what is the first thing you would do?
BHW: Oh man. Well, it’s pretty cheesy but I’d probably go check on my kids! See how everything turned out for those guys.
FS: If you had a final pitch for Benjamin, what would it be?
BHW: Benjamin is literally a mystery, a kind of shaggy dog story of an affably curmudgeonly writer making his way through Los Angeles in search of some secrets from his past. AND it’s an existential mystery, about a man trying to figure out what the hell he’s doing here—just like all of us. Plus, there’s a VERY cute dog in it.
Benjamin #1 goes on sale Wednesday, June 18, 2025, from Oni Press. Final order cutoff for issue #1 is Monday, May 26, 2025.
From the official press release about the series:
IN ONE L.A. MOTEL ROOM, A COSMIC QUEST IS ABOUT TO BEGIN… Oni Press, – the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997 – is proud to reveal BENJAMIN #1 (of 3) – the FIRST ISSUE of an ALL-NEW, PRESTIGE FORMAT limited series from Edgar Award nominee and Philip K. Dick Award winner Ben H. Winters (EC’s Cruel Universe, The Last Policeman Trilogy) and rising star Leomacs (EC’s Epitaphs from the Abyss, Basketful of Heads) unraveling the mystery behind the inexplicable second life of the brilliant author who imagined our desperate future, but never imagined he’d become part of it . . .
“Winters and Leomacs have made the indie darling of the year with BENJAMIN–an off-beat adventure of an unlikely duo finding common ground over the pursuit of not only truth, but reality,” said Oni Press Editor-in-Chief Sierra Hahn. “It’s rich, heartfelt, hilarious and at times tragic in its examination of one of the greatest diseases Americans are facing today: loneliness. I could not put this script down and then Leomacs brought the world to life in imaginative and exhilarating new ways. We have something truly special here.”
More than just a writer, more than just a science-fiction icon, Benjamin J. Carp was a cultural revolutionary. Over the course of 44 novels and hundreds of short stories — including the counterculture classic The Man They Couldn’t Erase — Carp pushed the boundaries of literary respectability for the sci-fi genre and his readers’ perception of reality itself . . . until decades of amphetamine abuse and Southern California excess finally ended a mind-bending career that always just escaped mainstream success. He died in 1982.
Until 2025 . . . when Benjamin J. Carp awakens, alive, in a burned-out motel on the fringes of Los Angeles. He remembers dying. He knows he shouldn’t exist. Is he a dream? A robot? A ghost? A clone? A simulation? In his own time, Carp pondered all of these scenarios through his fiction—and, now, as he treks from Studio City to Venice Beach and onward into the paranoid sprawl of 21st-century Los Angeles, he will be called to investigate his greatest mystery yet: himself.
Ben H. Winters is the Edgar Award and Philip K. Dick Award-winning novelist of The Last Policeman trilogy and Underground Airlines, as well as the creator of CBS’s #1-rated hit television series Tracker and a former writer for FX’s acclaimed Marvel science-fiction series Legion. BENJAMIN will mark Winters’s full-length comics debut, fresh off his appearance as one of the principal writers behind Oni’s best-selling resurgence of the acclaimed EC Comics line, where he has been featured regularly in the pages of Cruel Universe, Shiver SuspenStories, and Cruel Kingdom.
“I grew up reading a lot of science fiction, writers like Philip K. Dick, Samuel Delany, William Gibson, all that gorgeously weird stuff,” said Winters. “I’ve always favored sci-fi that digs into the basic existential quandary of life—like, what are we doing here? How did we get here, and where do we go? I thought how fun and funny it might be, if a writer who had spent a career trying to figure out what existence means, woke up decades after his own death. Unless he’s a clone. Or a robot. Or a dream.”
“The result is quite literally a journey of self-discovery, although you should note that the fact that the character and I have the same name is just a coincidence,” Winters insisted. “BENJAMIN is a bit of a mystery story, a bit of a caper, and—believe it or not—a story of friendship. And/or violent death.”
“I love quirky and stimulating characters that allow me to draw a range of emotions and fun situations,” said Leomacs. “BENJAMIN is a treasure trove of emotions. Just imagine waking up one day and realising you shouldn’t be where you are because you shouldn’t even be alive. Benjamin is funny and tragic, he’s smart but needs to catch up with the world. Drawing Benjamin is creation as much as it is discovery and it’s incredibly fun to do!”
In the tradition of Philip K. Dick’s A SCANNER DARKLY and Thomas Pynchon’s INHERENT VICE comes a uniquely fascinating and hilariously deranged excursion into the metatextual nexus where existence and oblivion, past and future, genius and madness, and glitter and grim reality all meet just beyond Hollywood Boulevard.
Presented in a prestige, ad-free format with 30 pages of story content and premium cardstock covers on every issue, BENJAMIN #1 will materialize in comic shops everywhere on June 18, 2025 with hallucinatory covers by multiple Eisner Award winner Christian Ward (Batman: City of Madness, Spectregraph), acclaimed interior artist Leomacs (Joe Hill’s Refrigerator Full of Heads), and visionary artist Malachi Ward (Black Hammer Reborn).