Science fiction has long been a genre both to entertain and to work through our certainties of the “what ifs” of the future. What do the decades have in store for us? How will innovations in medicine or cybernetics help or hinder humanity? How will nature’s gifts and ills make life on Earth flourish or falter? It’s that type of questioning that has shaped the narrative of the new Oni Press comic series Skin Police, which debuted last week. Written by Jordan Thomas, with art by Dan Gete, Skin Police follows a world reeling from a pandemic that rendered much of the world infertile. Desperate would-be parents look to black market cloning technology for children, coming at a price beyond money: in most cases, they grow up to be violent and absent of humanity. Enter the government agency known colloquially as The Skin Police, tasked with stopping these clones with extreme prejudice.
Ahead of this week’s final order cutoff for issues #2, I spoke with Jordan Thomas recently about the conceit of Skin Police, his favorite dysptopian stories, the wild, gorgeous look of the series, and how the series is a reflection of the world we live in today.
The first issue of Skin Police is equal parts gripping and unnerving, making me put my hand slightly over my eyes while reading, but never looking away. That’s the best endorsement I can give the series–meaning, check it out now.
FreakSugar: For folks reading this, what is the idea behind Skin Police?
Jordan Thomas: It’s about 150 years in the future and Europe is now a dictatorship still reeling from an infertility pandemic that caused population numbers to plummet, throwing the world into uncertainty for several decades. Desperate couples wanting children turned to a black market cloning network to get cloned babies to pass off as their own. Problem is that 75% of these clones, or dupes as we call them, suffer serious issues between 28 and 32 and become paranoid, homicidal, hallucinating, violence machines. So, society is full of these ticking time bombs and the DIC, less affectionately known as The Skin Police, are the government taskforce set up to track and stop them by any means necessary.
FS: Who ARE the Skin Police? Who are some of the characters we’ll meet?
JT: The main DIC/Skin Police officers we follow in the book are all round badass legendary agent Brisson Eckis and his new rookie partner Trainee Agent Sheen Corfer. Eckis’ actual partner is in a coma when the story starts after a bust went wrong although there’s some mystery about what she was doing at the location in the first place. The Skin Police themselves are not particularly loved by most of the populace as they have special privileges that hugely undermine the average citizen’s privacy and rights, so there is a lot of tension there.
FS: The idea behind the series and the first issue made me keep reflecting on the world’s current state. The ever-mounting uncertainty of “what if?” every day. Did you take any inspiration from the real world for this sci-fi tale?
JT: Oh sure, the whole thing is a reaction to the world we’re living in today, which I think is the case with most sci-fi. All over the world the right wing has been gaining traction and in general it feels like we’re in a time where something seriously bad could happen at any moment, which is the same as what people are experiencing in our story. There’s also a lot in Skin Police about treating people as “other” and whether showing more humanity and kindness could avoid the terrible outcomes that pop up regularly throughout our series.
FS: Following up on that, do you have a favorite dystopian story or stories? Are there any that you feel impacted your story?
JT: I don’t know if it’s exactly dystopian, but the first couple of Alien films with the way that there’s this mega corporation in the background really causing all the problems but they’re kind of faceless, which has been spoilt a bit in the more recent films, is something I think is super effective and that I drew on a lot writing Skin Police. The politics of The Expanse novels is another almost dystopian story I love a lot. Then of course there’s the ones that are close to our starting premise like Blade Runner and Children of Men. It’s a pretty great subgenre in general.
FS: The look of the book is perfectly unnerving. What can you tell us about the collaboration process with the creative team?
JT: Firstly, that the whole team is top notch. Daniel Gete’s work as the penciller and inker is just incredible. We spoke a lot about the visual identity of the series before he started. I really wanted to capture a European, Moebius type look at the future, I didn’t want grim and gritty. I also wanted the cities to be a mixture of old and futuristic architecture, as Europe has so much history and it’s not going to be knocked down and replaced by sci-fi mega skyscrapers anytime soon, so I wanted that to shine through and Daniel has just done a wonderful job with all of it as well as the very tight, kinetic action scenes that appear several times an issue. Then Jason Wordie has done such a beautiful job of following that tone through with his interesting choice of color palette, and Jeff Powell is just a complete professional who nails every job he gets. Karl Bollers, our editor, has also done a great job of facilitating all of this and enabling the creators to do their best work.
FS: Is there anything you can tease about what we can expect to see later in the series?
JT: There’s an amazing issue where our agents raid an illegal underground dupe fighting ring, that is like a kind of nightmarish Mad Max version of MMA, that is a real wild ride. I think people will enjoy that one.
FS: If you had one final pitch for Skin Police, what would it be?
JT: I’d say that between the unique art and wider world we’re building this is a fresh sci-fi series that comes at you fast with action and ideas in equal measure, so if you want to have a thrilling reading experience followed by several days of thinking about the wider implications of the characters’ actions and the various shadowy goings on this is the book for you.
Skin Police #1 is on sale now from Oni Press. Issue #2 goes on sale Wednesday, November 6, 2024. Final order cutoff for issue #2 is Wednesday, October 9, 2024.
From the official issue description for issue #2:
In the year 2142, the future isn’t looking too bright! If you haven’t had your daily dose of dystopia, writer Jordan Thomas (The Man From Maybe) teams with artist and rising star Daniel Gete (Über) to deliver it to your local comic shop in the next mind-bending chapter of the sci-fi mega epic that will leave you shocked, appalled, and begging for the next nail-biting installment!
As DIC agents Brisson Eckis and Sheen Corfer, aka the “Skin Police,” delve deeper into their official investigation to locate several potentially homicidal renegade clones known as “Dupes,” they manage to extract some information that may prove vital in their search. However, their findings may lead them to more than they can possibly handle!
Meanwhile, hunted and on the run, freshly discovered Dupe Lacey Dodd-newly delivered from imminent termination at the hands of the Skin Police-finds herself an unwitting guest of the enigmatic Heath Noxxon, leader of the Dupe Rebel Underground. But has she gone straight from the frying pan and into the fire?