Writer Aaron Durán is no stranger to the world of comics, “I mean if we go back far enough, I very likely learned to read by starting with comics.”
A storyteller at heart, Durán started blogging in the early-2000s exploring the intersections of “nerd” culture, entertainment and Pacific Northwest life on his site Geek in the City. Shortly after, a weekly podcast of the same name was born. But the draw of writing comics was never far from his mind.
“It’s the format of storytelling I always come back to,” he says. “I just love the storytelling opportunities that only comics can provide.”
Durán explained that with comics, there’s no budget to constrain the storytelling, providing nearly limitless possibilities.
“If you want to tell a sci-fi or fantasy epic on film, you’re not gonna get to unless you’re a Spielberg and even then he has to fight for it because it’s so expensive,” he says, “But comics don’t have that limitation — you can tell the most extravagant, outlandish, epic tale that you could possibly imagine, and you can dial it all the way down to incredibly personal one-on-one stories.”
Since 2011, Durán has been writing and self-publishing his own comic series, along with two Young Adult novels, while also freelance writing and consulting for companies like Image Comics, Activision Blizzard, and Lion Forge Comics. In 2018, he pitched a reimagined version of his character Althalia Cabrera, witchy Portland hipster fighting demons with ancestral magic, to Lion Forge Comics. It was green-lit for a five-issue series, but a merger with Oni Press, a publishing backlog, and an ongoing pandemic had Durán unsure of the series’ survival.
“I kept waiting for that email that said “Well maybe one day we’ll come back to this, but we had to cancel your book,” he said.
But that day never came. And on March 30, the first issue of “Season of the Bruja” from Oni Press will be available at your local comic book store. Durán joined OPB’s Crystal Ligori to talk about the new comic series.
Crystal Ligori: I understand a lot of the concept for “Season of the Bruja” is based on your own family traditions.
Aaron Durán: Yeah it’s based on a lot of stories that my abuela would tell me when I was much much younger. Even though we grew up in a pretty religious house, she would still tell me all these weird stories about Mexican mythological creatures, things that would nibble on your toes if you didn’t leave your feet tucked in at night. She would do the broken egg under my bed if I wasn’t feeling well. So even though she was very religious, these mythologies just stuck with her. As I got older, I got more into fun, goofy, paranormal stuff and [that] just merged with me wanting to rediscover those stories and tell them in a new fun way. So that’s really where the original idea for “Season of the Bruja” came from.
Ligori: I don’t want to give too much away, but I really loved the mix of English and Spanish in the conversation between Althalia and her abuela Isadora. It resonated with me as the granddaughter of immigrants and a person who didn’t speak the same language as my yiayia. There was this moment when Althalia asked to speak Spanish and Isadora kind of cuts her off and says “Cállate — There, that’s Spanish.” Like, you know, “shut up, be quiet.” I just want to talk about that moment because it had a resonance for me and I wanted to know about writing it.
Durán: Yeah, that’s actually a really important scene for me. This is something that a lot of Mexican American people deal with, especially if you’re second or third generation. A lot of people assume that to be Mexican American, you have to speak Spanish and a lot of us don’t. My Spanish is not that good [and] for various reasons, my family didn’t really want to teach me Spanish when I was much younger and I think they were for defensive reasons; what they experienced as kids.
So I’m very much channeling my own issues and disconnect with a part of my culture, not speaking the language very well. So those scenes are really important to me. And the version of that conversation, I believe I have had with my abuela many, many times when I was younger, you know that you know “Come on, speak Spanish” and I get the “Cállate, there that’s Spanish, now leave me alone.” And I’m really hoping I can connect with people, especially kids of immigrants second or third generation, that are tackling or dealing with those issues themselves. Althalia discovering that element of herself, is very much me also discovering that element of myself.
Ligori: “Season of the Bruja” was brought to life with art by Sara Soler, a collaboration that also happened during a pandemic. So I’d love to know a little bit more about what that was like.
Durán: During a pandemic and also the other side of the world [since] Sara is from Barcelona. This book had a lot thrown at us, but working with Sara was just a dream. She just brought so much energy, not just to her art but her enthusiasm for the project itself. I’ve been working in comics one way or another for so long, that part of me gets a little jaded and she is not that way at all, and it kind of forced me to quit being just a grumpy writer.
When I originally wrote “Season of the Bruja”, it had a much darker tone, I mean it’s definitely a book intended for all age readers, but in my head, it had a darker, edgier look to it. And Sarah can do that — no spoilers, but we have some serious monsters that show up and she can cut loose and make some creepy, creepy stuff — but she brought a lightness and a more rounded style to the book that I never would have imagined. And now I just can’t think of it looking any differently. Her artistic sensibilities are very different from mine and that ended up being just one of the best things that could ever happen to this book.
Ligori: You mentioned monsters and magic, and I think one of the reviews that I read summed it up really nicely [saying] “If you want to see a badass Latina fight demons with magic, this is your book”.
Durán: [laughing] Yeah, that’s basically the quick pitch to it. But I definitely think this book is making a statement about “these are our stories that we want to tell”. This has happened before in certain stories that I’ve told, that I kind of got known as ‘the guy who writes Mexican stuff’. And it’s not just for Mexican American or Mexican readers, I hope they definitely enjoy it, but I honestly believe and hope that everyone can find something in this story because it’s about discovering where you come from, discovering your heritage and how it makes you stronger. How it makes you a better, more rounded person, especially in a country where so many of us are kind of a mishmash of one or two cultures that are often butting heads in our own minds and it doesn’t have to be that way. And I’m hoping that “Season the Bruja” will help people kind of find that balance within themselves, while just having a good time watching this young woman fight demons.
