"Welcome to the enchanting and eerie universe of Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives. Creators Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz join Gayety's Caitlynn McDaniel to unveil the magic behind this adaptation of Neil Gaiman's celebrated comic.
Discover their insights on supernatural adventures, the richly woven character dynamics, and how they expertly balance dark themes with whimsical humor.
Plus, revel in the wonderfully queer narratives woven throughout the series.
Don't miss the premiere on April 25th, where mystery and diversity meet in the spellbinding world of Dead Boy Detectives! "
Discover their insights on supernatural adventures, the richly woven character dynamics, and how they expertly balance dark themes with whimsical humor.
Plus, revel in the wonderfully queer narratives woven throughout the series.
Don't miss the premiere on April 25th, where mystery and diversity meet in the spellbinding world of Dead Boy Detectives! "
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PeopleTranscript
00:00 That was wonderful to see you again. I know last time I got to talk to you at Netflix and I'd only
00:05 got to see one episode. So now having seen all of them, I'm so excited for the ride everyone is
00:11 about to go on. Oh good. Oh yeah, no, I loved it. I can't wait for everyone to join in on the fun.
00:18 Going over to you, Steve, I just want to start us off a little bit. And can you just talk a little
00:25 about the original material and just what you were most excited to bring to life from that?
00:29 Sure. I mean, I started reading Neil's comic books, The Sandman, obviously, when I was in
00:38 high school, but also found Dead Boy Detectives after it had sort of spun off and kind of fell
00:45 in love with the boys. I was going through a particular period of loss in my life and
00:49 it gave me like a sort of psychedelic shoulder to cry on in a weird way. And so I just fell in love
00:56 with the material. And so when I had the chance to adapt it, for me, it was really important to
01:00 hang on to the backstory of the boys and sort of the backstory of Crystal and kind of make sure
01:07 that they felt familiar to people who read the comics, even though we were having to age them up
01:13 and change certain circumstances. That really was the thing that I wanted to hang on to is sort of
01:18 that we've chosen each other instead of death, which I feel is really special.
01:26 Absolutely. And I love all of their dynamics. I want to jump into that in a sec, but I did want
01:33 to go to you, Beth, and just kind of talk about the supernatural elements that we get to explore
01:39 in the show. Because I know you've each kind of worked on supernatural projects before,
01:43 but I feel like this really gave you a platform where you could just go any direction a lot of
01:48 ways. You're literally taking my words. This is what I say to everyone. I'm sorry. No, no.
01:54 No, it's exactly what you just said. I worked on a lot of different genre shows, but this is the
02:04 largest world building. And also in terms of the most creative, we're able to do kind of whatever
02:12 we want, as you see in the season, in terms of who our cases are. We go from two high school boys
02:22 who are trying to figure out who killed them to a sea monster. Giant mushroom. Giant mushroom.
02:28 Every episode is just wacky. And two animated sequences that we love. And I feel like we were
02:36 allowed in the writers room, like the first couple of weeks, we kind of do this thing where we tell
02:40 them to think of their craziest ideas and we put them all on the board and we use absolutely every
02:47 single one of them for the show. I love that. So it's all just original, whatever you can really
02:54 think of the craziest ideas. That's fun. And I have to ask, I mean, do you have a favorite kind
03:01 of supernatural element that we will see this season? A favorite super... I have teeth face.
03:09 That's from her episode.
03:12 Because we find him hilarious. He was just a running joke in the room.
03:18 He was. But can I tell you though, like inside baseball here, in the writers room,
03:22 we had never talked about teeth face speaking. And so when Beth's script came in and it included
03:29 teeth faces line, like, Oh, sorry. Bye bye. Or whatever. I was like, are you kidding me?
03:36 And so it was and we kept it because it was bananas. I think for me, it's, it's maybe
03:44 my favorite supernatural element is the cat king generally. And then specifically the sprites.
03:54 Absolutely. I was going to say those are obviously some of my favorites, some like
03:59 characters that we get to learn more about, which is fun. And I do have to ask, I mean,
04:04 was Lucas Cage and the cat king, is that just all him? Did he need any direction?
04:08 I know, I know what this is about.
04:12 We had, we had a zoom with him and he talks to us. This was right when he took the role.
04:18 And then when he came in for his costume fitting, I think that was very informative for him
04:25 because Kelly, our costume designer had like, gone to the mat on these very kind of
04:32 sexually fluid, but still really regal outfits for him throughout. And so I think he really
04:39 kind of pieced it together from that. And he showed up on set and kind of delivered
04:42 that character. I mean, we were very, we're very grateful.
04:47 I think because he's obviously so different from Edwin, I think he kind of used that energy for,
04:54 you know, shock value to kind of mess with that character. And
04:57 Oh yeah, he's having fun.
04:58 Yeah. How can you not, honestly? And I mean, I love, I love the core for the Nico,
05:06 Crystal, Edwin, Charles. I mean, there's such an unlikely pairing, but you really get to watch
05:11 them grow. And I also just love how relatable all of their perspectives can be to multiple people.
05:17 I mean, even with the queer stories, there's queer relationships that kind of just flow
05:21 and are not introduced. And then there's other ones, you know, like Edwin's that kind of take
05:26 a little more time. So going over to you, Steve, again, can you just kind of talk a little bit
05:31 about their, all of their dynamic and what you love about it?
05:34 Sure. I mean, look, we, the great thing about the show is that, and this is true of all of
05:39 Neil's work. So you can kind of take it out for a spin, which is that it is, it has so much
05:45 representation built into it. But for me, I thought a fun sort of new discovery was Edwin's sexuality
05:53 and his journey across the episode and discovering his identity because he died in Edwardian London
05:59 when it wasn't even an option to be gay as we think of it today. And especially for him in
06:07 boarding school. And so I just think that getting to go on the journey with him of self-discovery
06:15 that he has over the first season was really a highlight for me. And then if we're going to have
06:23 like, my rule is heroes can be gay and so can villains. So I'm not super worried about
06:29 queer people being presented in a negative light in a show that kind of has queer people across
06:36 the board. So the Jenny Maxine story is one of our favorites. And that's what I'll say. And people can
06:43 watch the episode and see how that unfolds. Absolutely. And I think we've kind of touched
06:49 a lot about the fun of this show, the whimsy and everything, but it's also just really dark. Like,
06:54 I think episode three is what came to me and that I was like, Oh, like, we're actually we're going.
06:59 That's what it's supposed to do. Episode three is supposed to let you know.
07:03 So I just wanted to go to you, Beth, and just kind of talk about it. So you said that was
07:08 intentional. But do you ever really have these conversations on how dark it should be while
07:11 still kind of keeping all of the supernatural whimsy? We did. And we and that's how we broke
07:16 the episodes. But I do remember being seeing a cut of three for the very first time and being like,
07:23 whoa, this is dark. And it was even darker, actually. But I think that that's the fun of
07:30 the show in terms of the tone where you can you can have these like lighter moments while you have,
07:36 you know, someone murdering his entire family over and over again. And I think that's what
07:41 makes this show special, because it you don't really see that kind of blend. And in a lot of
07:49 shows in it, and it didn't feel it didn't feel hard. It wasn't like a it just kind of kind of
07:55 naturally flowed, I feel like. Yeah. And we we use the humor in the show to tell even darker stories.
08:01 So if we're kind of letting the audience off the hook with some jokes, and then there's some things
08:06 that you can't really look away from. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed all of it. I
08:14 think it really, really came together. It was was beautifully dark and scary, but also just so fun
08:20 to watch. So congratulations. That's all the time I have. But thank you. I'm glad we got to talk to
08:25 you again. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.