‘Somna’ Creators On The Power of Eroticism In Comics

If you’re hungry for some fresh horny horror, then DSTLRY has the perfect new comic series for you. From the beautiful and freaky minds of Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay comes Somna, an erotic and nightmarish tale about an unhappy woman in the 1600s and the things that visit her while she sleeps…

Read the full synopsis for the series below:

Ingrid is unhappily married to Roland, the town’s bailiff and chief witch hunter, who is on a single-minded quest to purge the ‘heretics’ in their midst. After a prominent town leader is found murdered, accusations fly, and no one is above reproach from Roland’s deadly crusade. Ingrid has her suspicions about who the real murderer is, but even as she pursues the truth, she’s pursued herself by a shadowy figure. Ingrid finds that she’s drawn to the foreboding phantom in ways she can’t resist. Does this dark and tempting stranger may hold the key to the mystery…or will he damn Ingrid’s soul to the blackest circle of Hell?

We spoke with Cloonan and Lotay about eroticism in comics, the need to push back against puritanical ideas, and why this is considered a bedtime story.

Dread Central: How did the two of you work together to combine art styles?

Becky Cloonan: Since we’re both drawing the same characters and setting, it was important that we organized the art from the get-go. Lisa [Tula] did some drawings of all the major characters, and I followed her designs. We did a lot of back and forth, too, adding pages or panels to help with transitions between our sections, and dropping in some wash/watercolor effects to my pages. A lot of this is done after we’ve finished drawing the book, and can get a proper look over all the pages in order. It’s a really organic process!

Tula Lotay: Somna has been a real labor of love for us both. Becky and I have been talking about this story for years. During that time we’ve met and shared ideas and discussed themes, which has helped to mold the story and artistic approach. Becky and I also have similar tastes when it comes to films, TV, and music and these influences have also fed into the process.

I think there was a very conscious decision that Becky would take on and visualize the waking, physical world, while my style suited the dreams and nightmares that are populated by the Shadow Man. This blurs a little as the narrative progresses—especially in the last book. We also fed off each other throughout the creative process, and there was this continual ebb and flow where one person would have an idea and this would inform what the other was doing. There’s an enormous trust and understanding between us and that was such a brilliant platform to work off. I love Becky and her work so much, so I was a little intimidated working with her on this, but also massively inspired because she’s such a pleasure to work with. Her ideas are amazing and she’s so encouraging. She’s the best.

DC: I love how you call this a bedtime story. Can you tell me more about why you chose to use that phrase as part of the title?

BN: At first, it was just a joke, a few words to write under the title as we worked on the cover design. But with sleep and dreams being such a big part of the story it began to make more and more sense as time went on.

TL: Becky picked the title and it’s a little tongue in cheek. It’s about sleep paralysis, so it is literally a bedtime story, but definitely one for adults. Also though, people have been sharing stories for thousands of years. This is part of our shared, collective make-up—it’s wired into us. Horror stories told around a campfire late at night preyed on our fear of the dark and the unseen. The only escape is to hide under the duvet with your eyes closed. Your bed was always a sanctuary against the monsters and spirits that roamed the outside world!

When I was a kid, if I was allowed to stay up late to watch a film that was way beyond my years, it was incredibly exciting—even if I spent most of the time hiding behind a cushion. So Somma is playing with all these ideas. It’s being reminded of that thrill—a bedtime story for adults. Something to absorb before you drift away into the abyss…

DC: I also love how unafraid Somna is to be erotic. Why is that eroticism so important to you both to portray, especially when we’re living in a more puritanical era?

BN: It’s funny you should use the word Puritan since Somna takes place in England during the early 17th century, just before the Protestants began demanding some pretty extreme social and religious reforms. However, I sometimes wonder if what we see as puritanical today is just a side-effect of exposing society’s abject and deep-seated misogyny. A pendulum will always swing further than it needs to before finding its center again.

I also think comics in North America are still feeling ripples of the Comics Code moral panic, which is a whole other can of worms… On the flip side of that, I follow so many incredible artists on Patreon doing erotic and adult comics, I think it’s only a matter of time before we see that echoed on the shelves of more comic stores. Comics should be subversive, unsafe, and push boundaries! We should be free to think critically about the art and media we consume, and at the same time be unafraid to express ourselves.

TL: I think, if we’re going to tell a story like this, we have to be honest and show the physical and
sexual side of the characters, especially the female characters. People who know my work will
know I don’t shy away from this and I like to push things as far as I can go. It’s easy to titillate,
but it’s really hard, I think, to create genuinely erotic imagery. In my work, I try to convey this
through faces and expressions, where there is longing, lust, and also fragility. Obviously, we’re
both female artists who are still working in a very male-dominated industry, so there’s a big
responsibility there, too, to be truthful. And as a woman, it’s great to have this freedom and
power over the story and characters. That the women in the story have been created by the
female gaze is really important I think. I also think that female-led narratives—created by female
creators—are slowly taking shape across a number of artforms, although there is a very long
way to go still.

DC: The Witch Hunts are obviously evocative. But why set Somna in this time period? How did you want to use that setting to tell this particular story?

BN: When you talk about witch trials most Americans will think of Salem, but witch hunts were all the rage in England and continental Europe for centuries before that. The early 1600s make for an interesting backdrop. England was on the verge of a civil war and radical religious reform. We weren’t trying to write historical fiction though (Somna is about as historically accurate as a Hammer film!), but having a clear setting for the story made the environment feel lived-in, and the characters feel real. ANYWAY!

Once my friend Mike Molcher invited me along to do some English Civil War reenactment, and after immersing myself in the time period, learning how to put on all the clothes and stuff… I think since then I’ve wanted to set a comic in this period. If I’m being honest, I just love all the tiny buttons.

TL: The witch hunts in England, Europe, and the US all took place under the banner of Christian religion. Limited knowledge of science and the physical world bred suspicion and fear, people were genuinely terrified of the unknown, and tales of dark spirits and the devil were rife. This religious fervor was especially allowed to ferment during times of famine, disease, and war when it was easy to blame the weak and powerless members of society—namely women—for these horrors.

In England, witch hunts under the direction of Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, flourished during the civil war when men were away fighting for years on end and women were essentially left to pick up the pieces in their communities. Their vulnerability at the hands of religious zealots led to hundreds of women being incarcerated and executed. It’s very easy to see why witch hunts captured the public imagination and of course, their impact is still felt today.

There is a deep fascination with these stories so it made sense to set our story within
this timeframe. As well as deep-rooted superstition, religion also had (and still does) a huge
impact on people’s sexuality of course. Religion, by proxy, allowed men to control women. Sex
was taboo and in small communities and towns, sex only took place within marriage and under the
eyes of God. Any kind of sex outside this was a sin. Men, and especially women, were totally
repressed, so we also wanted to explore this element of people’s lives. Given all this, I don’t
think Somna could really be set in any other time period.

DC: What are some of your favorite erotic horror films?

BN: Possession is waaay up there for me. Thirst, The Devils… I just did my yearly watch of
Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and it always manages to surprise me, that movie is horny as
fuuuk. It’s so breathy!

TL: The Hunger, Argento films but especially Suspiria and Tenebrae, Possession, Antichrist, It Follows, Under the Skin, Devil Ride Out, The Witches (Hammer), Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Twin Peaks

Somna is available now wherever you get comics and from DSTLRY.

Categorized:Interviews