If someone told you to read something called “Santa Clause Private Eye” you might be skeptical, I certainly was. Believe it or not, this is not your usual holiday story. While using most of the tropes we are accustomed to with Santa, this is a gritty noir detective story that shows our favorite gift giver trying to make ends meet. Available on Thrillbents app, which gives you all you can eat access to comics for $3.99 monthly, this story will entertain you frame by frame, the creator and writer Jeremy Bernstein took some time to talk with us about his latest project and of course his previous writing and Twitter handle, @fajitas Check it out!
BSR!: Ok, how did you land @Fajitas as a twitter handle.
JB: It must have been luck I have no idea. It was a joke in college and when I sign up for anything that is my first go to. I must have got into Twitter early enough to get it. The best part is that I get tagged regularly by people that say @fajitas instead of #fajitas. Lots of tweets that are “Oh my god! I just had @fajitas for dinner! So good!” I can’t help but reply you meant #fajitas! I should trademark that and sue every Mexican restaurant ever!
I should trademark #fajitas and sue every Mexican restaurant ever!
BSR!: “Santa Claus: Private Eye”, is pretty cool and has a lot to it. Where did the idea come from?
JB: The idea came from wanting to write a supernatural detective show. While working through the idea of a supernatural detective I wrestled with a lot of things I’ve already seen. I’ve seen vampires, werewolves, witches, but In the back of my mind I kept thinking, I’ve never seen Santa Claus, he could be a detective. At first I laughed at it, but as I thought about it I figured, “he knows who is naughty and nice” that’d be helpful. He can climb down chimneys making him sneaky, he makes a good private eye. Then as I thought it was like what would make Santa Clause do this? So then we get into the character of Santa Clause, he’s a person that makes everyone happy and is really jolly and, gosh he must be such a fun guy. Those type of people are seldom fun, and that led me into this notion of depressed Santa Clause as a down on his luck private eye in the Sam Spade tradition and then it became a story I had to tell.
BSR!: How did you come into contact with Michael Dorman and Rob Shwager for the art and coloring?
JB: They got in contact through Thrillbent. Michael Dorman actually contacted them on Twitter and said If you’re looking for an artist drop me a line. I happened to be looking for an artist for this project and when we looked at his portfolio he was perfect, he sent us some ideas and of course nailed it. Rob Schwager was through Thrillbent and he was also perfect. Seeing the amazing art from Michael was incredible, but seeing it colored really brought it home, it made me think, “wow this is real.”
I wanted to take Sam Spade and replace him with Santa.
BSR!: Are you a fan of Private Eyes and Noir films?
JB: You know, when I wrote this I really just wanted to take Sam Spade and replace him with Santa Clause. But I did look at a lot of films, the “Maltese Falcon,” “Double Indemnity” and many others and referenced those for inspiration and tone. I’ve done a lot of TV writing so I’m pretty savvy with mystery as a form, but we wanted to take this to that Noir level and use every trope I could find and mix them with Santa Clause tropes. I really enjoy breaking down genres and structures and combining those two tropes is something that I love doing.
BSR!: This is released frame by frame in typical Thrillbent style, did this change your writing style?
JB: It did in fact, it was originally written as a straight up comic book before Thrillbent got involved, and once they did I had to re-write it a bit which was a ton of fun. With Thrillbent you can get a lot of emotion through minor changes that you would waste an entire panel on. Mark Waid is known to say with print comics you can be surprised once per page, but with Thrillbent I can surprise you with every swipe. So it took a very different writing style, and of course once Michael Dorman got involved he took what I had written and put his own spin on it. His spin was almost inevitably a better spin.
BSR!: Are there any other projects you’re working on that you can talk about?
JB: Well, I just finished writing “Librarians” which premieres in December on TNT, it is sort of a follow up to the Noah Wiley movies they did on TNT previously. It is sort of a fun X-Files, to give you the short pitch. We had Rebecca Romaine, Noah Wiley and some great guest stars, so I’m looking forward to that finally getting seen. But everything else is still secret at the moment.
BSR!: You happened to write on “Deadspace” which is one of my favorite game series, how did you tackle that differently from a comic book.
JB: You have to know the specifics of your medium in each case. Video Games are character focused while TV is episode and week-to-week. Comics are about visuals, TV is character focused and Video Games are really about the actions and controlling it. All that said, I actually have a very similar approach to all of those different kinds of media. When I think about story, I went to USC film school, and the philosophy that I still live by is “a story is someone who wants something badly and is having a hard time getting it.” That stays true across any media, so the key is to know what your character wants and know whats in their way. Whether it is the gameplay or characters in the story and then go from there. I took that same approach with “Deadspace” you know, what does Isaac what, what does the player want and went from there.
BSR!: Have you written for other video games? Do you play games yourself?
JB: I learned to play Dungeons and Dragons from my parents at age 10 and have been gaming my entire life. I’ve done quite a bit of work in gaming. I did game design and writing, I always say I’ve done stuff from Deadspace 2 to Pretty in Pink the game. Tomorrow, I’m flying to China to speak and UDC China on characters in video games. I’m definitely looking forward to that.
“Santa Clause Private Eye” is available on Thrillbent comics. You can subscribe HERE. The monthly subscription is $3.99 and gives you full access to all of their products.