Dan Jolley: From Unknown to Obscure!

Dan Jolley grew up in a rural Southern town as a huge fan of all things science-fiction and fantasy, and now considers himself lucky enough (and stubborn enough) to make a living writing novels, video games, comic books, and children’s books.

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

I’m right in the middle of my first-ever fantasy series, The Demon-Sleuth Scrolls. It’s actually a genre mashup of high fantasy and mystery – it takes place in an original setting, where an all-human empire has been using rune-based magic to solve crimes for the last three hundred years. When something begins to break that magic down, it falls to the first-ever non-human member of the Imperial Criminal Investigation Ministry to begin introducing actual detective procedures for the first time in twelve generations, as they try to figure out what’s going on and maybe keep the empire from crumbling. I’ve had a lot of fun building a brand-new world, as well as a brand-new species – the protagonist, Nysska Stonegate, is a sethyd; they all have deep violet skin, yellow or orange eyes, and horns. Male and female sethyds alike are uniformly tall, graceful, gorgeous, they’re faster and stronger than humans, the entire species is pansexual, and the humans hate their guts. So Nysska has no choice but to become a reluctant ambassador for her people and an even more reluctant detective.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I’ve found that I like to write from the perspective of the outsider. I’ve felt like an outsider most of my life – pretty much no matter what situation I’ve ever found myself in – so I guess it comes pretty naturally. I’ve just never felt any real connection to “mainstream” characters in any kind of media. I’d rather read about some obscure superhero like the Creeper than Superman; I’d rather play (and I know this is going to date me horribly) some oddball like Blanka or Dhalsim than Ken or Ryu. The only “standard” character I think I’ve ever created was Travis Clevenger in my creator-owned comic book series Bloodhound, in that he was a blond-haired, blue-eyed white guy, but even that was because my then-wife wanted me to model him after the professional wrestler Triple H.

Also, no matter how I try to get away from it, I always seem to include either lightning or bears. Or both. I just really like lightning and bears, apparently.

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