In the mostly wordless five-part graphic novel Mage and the Endless Unknown (Iron Circus Comics, June 20), the title character, a wand-wielding innocent in a conical hat, ventures into a pastoral landscape that becomes increasingly horrific, losing an arm and an eye over the course of their adventures. Readers eventually learn that Mage has been charged with the task of healing a “cursed land” and that they are one of many who will undertake it. The absorbing, unsettling tale is executed in teeming black-and-white panels by debut graphic novelist SJ Miller, who lives and works in Las Vegas. They spoke with Kirkus via Zoom; the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you come to your story?

It’s a bit weird because I didn’t create it as a whole from the start. The first part was just a one-shot that I made online for the internet trend Inktober, where you would do an ink drawing every single day in October.

Is that like a NaNoWriMo for artists?

Kind of. It’s a thing on Twitter and Instagram. It was infamous because nobody ended up finishing it, because it was a lot of work. I wanted to finish it at least once. The way I got myself to do it was to make it a narrative. That’s why the first part [of the book] is just single illustrations, because that’s all I was going to be able to do for 30 days.

I liked doing it so much that I continued to do it every single year, starting in 2018 and ending in 2021. I would have a bit of an idea of where I wanted the next part to go, but I didn’t really conceptualize it until a couple weeks before the month that I would work on it.

I mostly felt my way through where the story was going as I was doing it. I didn’t really have any plans to try to get it professionally published. Then when Iron Circus approached me about publishing it, I had to sit down and actually plan it out: OK, where is this going? How is it going to end? How am I going to make it feel cohesive?

At what point in its development did Iron Circus come to you?

Right before I started Part 4. I did Part 4 as I would normally do it, and then I had to plan for Part 5 right after that.

How did they find you?

I was trying out this niche social-media site called Pillowfort, and Spike Trotman, who runs Iron Circus, ran into my work there. A couple months [after I posted Mage there] I got an email from Iron Circus. I was completely baffled [laughs].

Did you imagine it as a physical artifact before Iron Circus approached you?

Not as a complete volume. My intention was to make hand-stapled zines and bring them to conventions. That was the extent of my ambitions with it. I did print out the first two parts, so there should be some out there in some hands.

Your professional work is mostly as a colorist of other people’s work. What’s it like moving from that mode to your own work?

It’s funny, I actually prefer black-and-white comics despite being a colorist. I’m quite picky when it comes to color. Being a colorist was something I fell into after college. I enjoyed it, so I just kept doing it. But when it comes to my own work, I find coloring it a struggle for some reason. With Mage, a large part of [the reason for its being black and white] was the time constraints, but if I had the choice, I probably would still keep it [that way].

There’s something about black and white that I find very evocative, and I like the clarity of just the grays and the black and the white versus color. [There’s a lot] you can do with texture and shading in black and white.

Did you find yourself surprised at where you were going when you picked up your pen and returned to Mage after 11 months off?

Oh, always. I would always [try to keep] what I originally thought at the end of the previous fall, but by the time I started the new part, I would always have new ideas or completely different ideas. A lot of it was shaped by what was something interesting that I wanted to draw, and that would keep me motivated through the month of drawing these full-page illustrations every single day.

I was really interested in how you chose that page design, with just one panel with rounded corners.

It’s hard to remember, because it was so long ago. I think just made that choice [arbitrarily] when I was doing Part 1, you know, without any intention. But then when I wanted to continue the story, I had to keep it.

It sounds like that frustrated you a little bit.

A little bit. It got to the point where I wanted to break away from the single illustration and add panels, but I had to make everything fit within those rounded corners. I think right now I like it, but when I was doing it, I struggled with it.

At what point did you know that Mage has this commission, if you will, to heal the world a little bit at a time?

I kind of found that as I was making it. I think I ended up concretely deciding that’s what was happening around the middle of when I was working on Part 4, because I was actively thinking about how I wanted to wrap up the story at that point. I had to look through the previous chapters and find what felt true and right from what decisions I had already made.

Do you ever feel a little guilty at pitching poor Mage into this world?

Oh, no, never [laughs]. I am primarily a horror fan, so I always find that startling turn very fun. It’s not for everybody.

 I felt very protective of Mage.

That was my goal—I wanted that kind of immediate connection.

Are there any favorite artists you were in conversation with in your head as you worked on it?

I drew a lot from video games, actually. There’s a very popular type of indie game where you’ll have a familiar scenario and very lighthearted character designs. And then at some point there’s a horror turn. I was actively thinking of that when making Mage. There’s one called Eversion. It’s pretty old. The further you get into it, the more it [shifts] into horror. I wanted that same kind of turn.

What were some of your favorite creatures that you created?

Oh, I love the weird gooey guys in Part 2. I was looking at a lot of sea creatures when trying to create their forms. I wanted something where it feels human, but corrupted somehow. They were very fun to draw. I also like drawing all the really gnarly human faces.

What are you hoping readers will take away from Mage?

I’d like people to see that difficulties and struggles won’t last forever, and then you can move beyond them. I wanted to make sure whatever struggles Mage goes through, whatever injuries they feel, whatever they lose, they still move on. They still find joy in the world afterward.

Vicky Smith is access services director at Portland Public Library in Maine.