Tranquil Groves

While talking to Gail Simone for my interview with her for Wizard #225, she mentioned having a “lot of stuff’ she wanted to do outside of Wonder Woman, which she is leaving. While it didn’t fit into the Wizard feature, I wanted to know more about that “stuff,” which from advance solicitations we can see that Welcome to Tranquility is one of them.

I'm presuming the "lot of stuff" you wanted to do includes the return of Tranquility, so what can we expect from their return?

I love this town. Coming from a small town myself, it's interesting how war in the Middle East is less of a local hot conversation topic than a new stoplight. There's something very Mayberry still about a lot of American towns, even though all the sex and drugs and secrets are still there... they're just hidden better. But the good part of a small town, the hospitality, the friendliness and feeling of security, those are all there in Tranquility.

For readers that missed the first series, what do they need to know coming in to this one?

Not much, it’s a purely simple corn-fed American-born concept. Tranquility is a planned community for retired superheroes and supervillains. It’s quiet; the people there love picnics and fried chicken. But it’s also a town with some secrets. And the new generation of kids, many of them have powers and some resentment towards the older generations, heroes or not.

The town has a female sheriff, Thomasina Lindo, who takes care of the town, even without superpowers. And it can get a little hairy when there’s an invasion of zombies or robots.

It’s fun, pulpy, and offbeat, like Mayberry but with heat vision.

Where did the idea come from in the first place?

It’s a weird long story, but I came up with the idea long before going pro—Mark Waid was trying to think of ideas for a creator-owned series and some of his friends, including me, were tossing ideas back and forth. That one came to me because I live in a retirement town, was born here, and moved back several years ago. It’s nice, there’s not much crime. But there’s also not a lot going on—no diversity, not much of an art scene.

We’re so used to our heroes being in cities, this seemed a fun contrary setting.

Why do you feel now is the right time to bring them back?

Oh, I could write Tranquility forever, I simply got busy writing Wonder Woman and some other things. This won’t be the end of Tranquility. It’s got a hardcore fan base, and the trades were actually really good sellers.

The first series was done with artist Neil Google. What drew you the most to Neil Google's style? How would you compare him and your collaboration with him to your two other long-term collaborations, Ed Benes and Nicola Scott?

Well, I admire artists with vision, and Neil most definitely has that. I was a bit of a skeptic with him doing the book—I thought we needed more of a classic pulp artist, but he turned out to be the man, and immediately, I mean page one of the first issue, he just grabbed it and squeezed. We did the original run, but prior commitments meant he couldn’t do this mini.

And the artist this time around is…

A fabulous artist named Horacio Domingues, who really kept the spirit and tone going, handles the art. He can draw anything, and he chose to keep a similar, semi-cartoony vibe. It’s beautiful. Neil’s keeping his hand in by doing covers and we even have an amazing Ethan Van Sciver variant cover, among others!

Beyond this miniseries, do you still feel there is more to tell beyond this? What does the future look like for this series, and is there any chance Neil is part of it?

I think there’s more room in the concept, absolutely. It was always intended to be a series of six-issue minis, and the books did very well. Hopefully we’ll do more, and we’d love to have Neil involved.

I hope people will give it a try; it’s a unique and immersive book.