Dating can be a nightmare, a minefield of performance and expectations and attempting to connect with others without making yourself vulnerable to the pain of rejection. That’s certainly the case for the protagonist of Orla! from Mad Cave Studios. From the creative team of writer John Lees, artist Sally Cantirino, colorist Dearbhla Kelly, and letterer Lucas Gattoni, the comic series follows the titular lead as she copes with the dating scene, her own insecurities and frustrations, and the fact that she occasionally transforms into a huge, man-eating monster. While she’s decided to use her affliction for good and see terrible men to get them out of the dating pool, things become complicated when she meets a man who she likes. How does that influence her view of courting? Of romance? Or just connecting with other people?
I had the chance to speak with John Lees recently about the idea behind Orla!, the main character’s monstrous secret, working with the creative team, and how the gamification of dating and social media play into crafting the comic.
The first few issues of Orla! have been so engrossing. Even if you’ve been lucky in love, I think we all feel the frustration of navigating the emotional storm that we attempt to temper daily. Whether it’s self-image issue or loneliness, the world can feel like A LOT. Orla! feels like a perfect distillation of that frustration and is all the more engaging for it.
FreakSugar: For folks considering picking up the book, what is the conceit of Orla!?
John Lees: Orla! is a quirky, gory, horny horror romcom about a woman, Orla, navigating the Seattle singles scene while dealing with loneliness, body image issues, and the fact that she sometimes turns into a giant, man-eating monster. Unable to rid herself of this affliction, Orla decides she’s going to date and devour the scummiest men in the dating pool for the benefit of other women. But what happens when Orla finally meets a guy she doesn’t want to murder?
FS: Aside from the monstrous component, the book feels way too real. Why did you decide to tackle dating and the horror show it can be?
JL: I think horror, all genre stories really, are at their best when they’re built on some kernel of relatable truth, reflect the real world and real struggles faced by real people, even if it’s at an extremely heightened level. And one idea that resonated and I thought was worth exploring is how culturally we see this growing interest in the idea of romance, be it with romantasy or K-dramas or dating sims or other examples, but it runs alongside how increasingly hostile the world seems to be becoming to romance in the classic sense, with less real-world third spaces and social environments and people working more with less disposable income, and love being gamified and commodified on apps where potential partners are boiled down to images and stats on a screen. And it’s not just dating, with our social media feeds, we’re all crafting these curated, tailored images of ourselves and the lives we lead, to the point where it can feel like everything is a performance. The uncertainty over who in your life gets the curated public-facing you and who you trust to allow in to see the real you with all the mess and faults felt like a rich launching point for the story.
FS: As I mentioned, Orla has a monstrous secret. What can you tell us about that?
JL: Orla has a monstrous alter ego that she calls The Ick. She doesn’t know where it comes from, or why it is part of her. But whenever she gets too angry, afraid or stressed (or a couple of other catalysts she is not yet aware of as the story begins), The Ick emerges, and when it does, it wants to feed and destroy. Orla has learned the hard way in the past that she can’t just bottle down The Ick indefinitely. It’s like a pressure cooker: it’s always going to get out eventually, and the longer she tries holding it down, the bigger and more violent the outburst when it finally does get out. And so, Orla has decided the best, most moral approach is controlled releases on the worst, most predatory men, people she can rationalize as deserving of death and whose loss will be a net positive to the world around them.
FS: Following up on that, how did you come to the idea of using the monstrous manifestation as a plot element?
JL: The funny thing about that is, the monster came late in the development of the story! I’m a horror guy. I’ve always loved horror, and it’s as a horror writer I’m best known. But I actually also love romcoms, and I started Orla! with the idea of wanting to do a pure romance comic. I came up with a few different plot scenarios, and I was struggling to think up a good, inventive hook, you know how so many of the great romcoms have The Problem, The Obstacle, the thing keeping the two protagonists apart that must be overcome. And then the horror guy popped back up again, and it seems I can’t help but find my way back into the horror genre even when attempting something different, and so the solution I came up with was this idea of a woman with a monster inside of her.
FS: I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I sense that the monstrous side isn’t only a manifestation of her anger toward her dates. Does it represent other emotional states?
JL: Absolutely. You could see The Ick as a manifestation of anxiety. And it wasn’t something I was consciously thinking about when I first wrote the story, but people have brought up how Orla’s struggle to contain The Ick also feels like a parable for neurodivergence and “masking.”
FS: Sally Cantrino’s art is gorgeous! What can you tell us about the collaboration process like with the creative team?
JL: I have been calling the Orla! creative team “The Dream Team,” because everyone involved is a creator I’m a fan of who I was excited for the chance to work with. Sally Cantirino is one of my favorite comic artists. I’ve been a fan of hers going back to her incredible work on I Walk with Monsters, and have wanted to work with her for years. It hasn’t worked out previously with our respective schedules, but with Orla!, the stars aligned. And I’m so glad they did, as she’s truly a perfect fit for this book, making it her own. She brought so much of her own concepts and ideas into the realization of this world, drawing inspiration from old romance comics to give the book this poppy, effervescent aesthetic which is the ideal counterpoint to the violence and horror elements contained within. Her characters are so tactile and expressive, I feel Orla, Gwyn and co only truly came alive once they were rendered by her. I’ve been a fan of Dearbhla Kelly for as long as I’ve been a fan of Sally, as they were the colorist for Sally on both I Walk with Monsters and Human Remains. Dearbhla is so thoughtful in rendering environments and people in a way that gives them depth and nuance and which feels really evocative, and they have such a great dynamic with Sally, and know how to use colors to bring the very best out of her lines. And I’ve been impressed with the letters of Lucas Gattoni on a range of books. I remember just days before I found out we would be able to get him to work on Orla!, I’d been admiring his exquisite fart SFX on the Harley Quinn fart comic and thinking of Lucas as a literal case study of what great lettering adds to a comic. And he’s been such a generous collaborator, crafting a style of font and balloon that doesn’t just feel like an addition to the art, but a cohesive, immersive part of the visual identity of the page. We’e also been fortunate enough to have some great and supportive editors on the book in the form of Marla Eizik and Jon Moisan, really the whole team at Mad Cave Studios have been a delight to work with.
FS: I got very lucky when I found my fiancée. We hit it off on day one. But good lord, you nailed the terrible minefield that is dating. I’ve been lucky in how many bad dates I’ve had, but I’ve had friends tell me stories similar to what we see in issue #1. Did you pull from life or others’ experiences for that part of the book?
JL: Thankfully, most of the bad date experiences depicted in the book are a matter of invention. I’ve been fortunate that for the most part my date stories aren’t particularly awful, aside from one incident that involved me getting violent food poisoning and my date having to take me to the hospital! Nah, mostly I have had pleasant dates which then never went further because I’m pretty boring. But I’m also in the fortunate position of being a straight white man, so I know I have it easy compared to the women who are faced with the real dating horror stories!
FS: What has been your favorite part of working on the comic so far?
JL: Whatever comic I’m working on, one of the great joys is always seeing the pages coming in. Having written the script, there are always scenes and moments I’m so hyped to see get brought to life, and in the case of Orla!, those pages would come along and be even better and funnier than how I imagined them in my head.
FS: What are you reading right now?
JL: I recently read Spectators by Brian K Vaughan and Nico Henrichon, and that was astounding, one of the cleverest and most moving depictions of the afterlife I’ve seen in a while – and also FILTHY, so much smut! It’s been a vintage year for Batman comics, with both Batman: Dark Patterns and Batman & Robin: Year One recently wrapping their 12-issue runs, and both being incredible, primed to join the canon of classic Batman comics. I’ve been loving Assorted Crisis Events from Image, and Minor Arcana from BOOM! Studios. I only got to read the first issue of Buried Long, Long Ago from Anthony Cleveland and my pal Alex Cormack, because it’s actually hard to get Mad Cave Studios titles over here in the UK, but that was one of the best single issues I read all year, and I recently picked up the collected edition which I’m really excited to jump into.
FS: Do you have anything you can tease about what we can expect to see in the series?
JL: I would say expect to get taken on a range of emotions. There’s a lot of comedy and silliness in the first couple of chapters, but if we’ve done our jobs, as the series goes on there will be genuine tension and suspense, and also some emotionally moving moments. And I hope that, despite the presence of a giant purple monster, that readers can still get invested in this as a romcom, and come to care about Orla and Gwyn and be genuinely rooting for them to make it as a couple without Orla getting her heart broken… or Gwyn being eaten!
FS: Are there any other projects coming down the pike you’d like to discuss?
JL: I have two series I’m working on with ComixTribe, both of which operate under a crowdfunding/direct market hybrid model of going first to Kickstarter for deluxe editions, then being released as single issues in comic shops, before going back to Kickstarter for eventual collections. One is Sink, my long-running pulp crime/horror anthology series set in a nightmarish alternate Glasgow, with Alex Cormack and Shawn Lee. The other is Grawlgore & Shanks, a blend of high fantasy and crime procedural about a dwarf tailor and his orc steward who solve mysteries, with Joe Mulvey, JP Jordan and Shawn Lee. Both recently had successful crowdfunding campaigns, with fulfillment underway, and early 2026 is set to see new campaigns for both before the direct market releases later in the year.
FS: If you had a final pitch for Orla!, what would it be?
JL: Orla! is being released as a complete and collected graphic novel on 3rd March 2026. You can find it at bookshop.org here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/orla-john-lees/415953b0fa3fc553. Or you can pre-order direct from Mad Cave Studios here: https://madcavestudios.com/product/orla-vol-1/. If anything about the series that we’ve talked about appeals to you, consider trying it out. It’s a comic with laughs, scares and heart. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, and Orla and Gwyn are a couple of my favorite characters I’ve had a hand in creating, and I’m so excited to share it with you all. Also, there’s a scene where someone eats ass, and you won’t get that in The Avengers!
Orla! #5 goes on sale Wednesday, December 24, 2025, from Mad Cave Studios. The first volume of Orla! goes on sale Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
From the official issue description of Orla! #5:
You are cordially invited to the Valentine’s Day wedding of Harriet and Josh. Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace. Orla Bard might have a few things to say. As her two lives collide, can Orla protect those she cares about from the carnage of The Ick? Can true love prevail? Or is a Valentine’s Day massacre on the cards? All will be revealed in this heart-stopping conclusion.