Sci-Fi That Might Just Save You – BNP Interviews Jamie Mustard about His New Graphic Novel ‘HYBRED’

Portions of this interview have been cut and reordered for clarity and conciseness. BlackNerdPromblems: Hello, welcome to “Black Nerd Problems Interviews Various Comic Book Folks.” My name is Mikhail Snyder, your local comic interviewer for today, and we are joined by the author and art director of HYBRED from Street Noise Books. It is my pleasure to introduce conceptual artist, culturist, and writer Jamie Mustard. How are you doing today, Jamie? JAMIE MUSTARD: I’m doing very well, thank you for having me. BNP: Let’s start us off with the question of how would you describe HYBRED? Because I have my own interpretation of it, but before I spoil it for folks, how would you explain your book? JAMIE: So, HYBRED is a science fiction, future adjacent, alternate reality version of Los Angeles, loosely based on the story of my life. It’s a metaphor for my escape from an impossible situation, and I think there was a little bit of magic in that escape, and so therefore there is magic in HYBRED. And then the last thing I would say is when you hear the word Hybrid, you think of H-Y-B-R-I-D, which means superior mixture. HYBRED, the graphic novel, is spelled H-Y-B-R-E-D, which would mean superior breeding. And as a mixed person, I like the notion of creating, it’s almost like an origin story for a superhero, of this idea that a mixed person would be something special. BNP: To add on that on a couple different fronts, it sort of reads like a mature children’s book in a lot of ways. It h…