SDCC 2026: Writers Kristin Kreuk, Peter Mooney, And Eric Putzer Preview Their New ‘Black Star’

Snowy Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, hides a secret in the whiteout: a society of magic aiming to save the world. It has its origins in the 1800s fur-trade, but extends into the present day. Of course, such ambitions are always suspect and the characters of Black Star have a lot to question. Luckily, Comicon editor-in-chief Erik Amaya caught up with series writers Kristin Kreuk, Peter Mooney, and Eric Putzer at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday to discuss the ideas behind the first issue of the upcoming Titan Comics series.

Erik Amaya: So why Winnipeg as the setting for your tale?

Peter Mooney: I am from Winnipeg and we all worked together on a TV series that shot there; it’s where this idea was born. It came out of Winnipeg being a very particular city. A lot of people don’t know it. Most people aren’t familiar with it, but it is a very unique city: small, cold, rough around the edges, but with these incredible sort of threads of beauty, incredible artists, incredible music, and great food. So it’s sort of an exploration of how this little weird city became so weird? How did it get to be the way it is?

Amaya: What was the initial spark actually? You mentioned working on a TV show that led to these snow-covered scenes of violence.

Kristin Kreuk: The initial spark was, essentially, Eric had been coming into town and a driver mentioned that this one particular building, the Manitoba Legislative Building, was like the gates of Hell … and not because of the legislation, but because of other reasons, supernatural reasons.

So I just had had a spark of an idea like, “Oh, that sounds like Buffy in Winnipeg.” And then we actually started to explore the idea, and with the three of us particular people — with the things that we like and what we’re interested in — it ended up being far from “Buffy in Winnipeg” and became something much more complicated. It brought us into the 1800s [and] to snow-covered scenes of blood.

Amaya: How much is the legacy of fur-trapping is covered in Canadian schools?

Kreuk: It’s a big part of Canadian history!

Mooney: You’ve asked the right question to the right person

Kreuk: It is, because it is me when I start talking about it!

The HBC [Hudson’s Bay Company] predates any sort of Canada as a dominion. It was a capitalist venture. They were there to get fur and take it back to England. There was obviously some colonization in certain parts of the landmass, but not where our story takes place. There was no intention to settle at that point in time. And the people who lived there were indigenous nations and the Métis as well. That was what the land was and there was a lot of fur trade. So we learn about it. It’s important because it is our founding. But do we learn it in detail?

Eric Putzer: The bigger question is how deeply do we really get taught any of these concepts in school?

Amaya: Here in Southern California, we all learn about the California missions. But it is a very sanitized interpretation of what went down.

Kreuk: Samesies, but different. Because of reconciliation in Canada, there has been a massive push to teach a more honest history. And when we talk about residential schools and all those sorts of things, that exists. When we talk about the fur trade, it’s complicated and different people have different opinions on it. But I think that it’s become less sanitized and more honest. At least that’s what I understand from the kids that I know who go to school.

Amaya: How secret is magic in the world of Black Star? Or is the refrain featured in the book,” no one will believe you,” the answer?

Mooney: I think “no one will believe you” is the safety net should anything come out because it is completely secret. Our goal in creating this world: while it’s an invented history, it’s a sort of alternate telling of the history and it actually slides perfectly into the present. Our contemporary storyline is taking place in Winnipeg as it stands right now. It’s not like a Winnipeg where there are also unicorns on the street. It is the Winnipeg that exists. So, the magic is completely underground for reasons that will make sense in the story.

Amaya: I like the notion of magic living in the empty space of matter. How much of the system is built around the fact that it lives there?

Mooney: A lot. We spent a lot of time trying to talk about the rules and we would sometimes find ourselves painted into a corner where we’d have something that would be cool or we’d say, “oh, what about this?” But it didn’t fit our rules. And if it didn’t fit the rules, it didn’t happen. Once we established the world, we’ve been fairly strict about it. Now our characters don’t all understand the rules because this is the founding. They’re all trying to sort of figure it out and create what it is.

Kreuk: And I don’t even know if they understand it fully in the contemporary story. That is another thing we explore as well. How do our narratives get passed down? How do we understand what we’re doing at all? How many of these stories are even true? And did we make the correct interpretations?

Putzer: We wanted to make sure that we never fell into a “deus-ex-magica” situation where they would be so powerful that it would take away any tension from a story perspective. So we kept it very organic and grounded, which is how we fell into the physics explanation.

Amaya: I really love that detail. It makes it feel sensible in a way. Also, I really love the splash pages in this issue. Was it always the plan to build up the momentum to those moments and keep every other page fairly layered with panels?

Kreuk: This is what we learned, as we’re just starting, was those pages. They’re really important and you have to use them wisely. That’s what we tried to do. I mean, we’re still learning, but I’m glad that you say that because it means that we did accomplish that.

Putzer: We certainly put a lot of intention into the pacing of three [splash pages], the panels, and how that would go so that the reveals happened at the right moments that we wanted.

Amaya: And that space in the first flash page with the not quite pentagram, that’s a real location?

Kreuk: It’s literally the Pool of the Black Star in the Manitoba Legislative Building.

Mooney: It’s pretty amazing how the way [artist] Joe Bacardo recreated it. This is a real place where I would go in high school for tours. It’s pretty amazing to see it in this context.

Amaya: Dashiell’s experience in the 1800s part of the story really seems to set the tone. Will we see the entirety of his journey as we reach the present day?

Kreuk: It’s chapter one of his journey. There will be more because you see it in this issue, but it gets more-and-more evident. There is a distance between the man that we meet here in the 1800s and the man that you see in the contemporary times. And there is something that’s happened over those 200 years that has made him into this very different person.

Amaya: How different is the Canada of the 19th century versus now? I mean, beyond electricity and high rises.

Mooney: Very different.

Putzer: The Jets [Winnipeg’s hockey team] were there, then left, then came back. (Laughs)

Kreuk:

There Jets are very important in Winnipeg. But it’s a very different land. Especially this area. So even when Winnipeg was founded in the late 1800s, it had like 3000 residents. That’s it. And that’s an estimate because there aren’t exact numbers for that. Now, it’s a full city. And even shortly after that time period, the city grew massively. There was so much hope for that place. So there’s all these buildings and all this activity and rail lines that came through and it changed so much. It’s a vastly different place. And it went through a boom and then it went through a bust. It crashed and didn’t really recover very easily. So that city’s gone through, like every city has gone through, so many iterations.

Mooney: If you think of, say, London, there are pubs in London that were open during the time of our story that are still there today. There’s lots of cities around the world that have that history where you can walk down a street and the buildings — well now there’s parking meters and street signs in front of them. But the buildings in those cities were there at the time of our story. Virtually nothing that existed at the time that we start exists in Winnipeg today.

Kreuk: Apart from the land itself and the rivers that go through it.

Putzer: The rest of North America would be similar.

Amaya: The desire to change the world is often associated with youth, but this group seems as diverse in age as they are in backgrounds. Is the aim to save everything coming from someone or something older?

Putzer: I think we do shift to some more youth in the contemporary storyline as we go further.

Kreuk: I’ve met people who are older who are desperate to change the world, save the world, make the world a better place, and justify their actions through that.

One of our characters is French Canadian, but he aspires to Enlightenment ideas. He’s a man who has read extensively of Enlightenment ideas. That is sort of skin he’s put on and the thing that he presents to himself and to the world. He’s really made himself into something that he’s not. His origin story is so different from the man that he presents himself as, and he’s the driving force of the ideology. So he’s not youthful, he’s one of the older members, but he is maybe the most desirous of meaning or feeling like he is someone of value in the world.

Putzer: And I think as we go on, the idea of age becomes a big part of the series.

Kreuk: Age and mortality.

Black Star #1 arrives in comic shops on July 29th.