- Interview Location: New York Comic Con 2025
- Interview Date: 10/10/2025
- Format: In-Person, One-on-One
Anime Herald: How’s the con been treating you?
Jared Throne: Pretty well. I was here all day yesterday. I was going to be here anyway, not just for this (the signing at IDW Publishing).
Anime Herald: What are some of your highlights from the con?
Jared Throne: I went to the (Brian K. Vaughan) panel. That’s always good. I love Artist’s Alley. I spent a lot of time there yesterday.
Anime Herald: Shall we jump to the book?
Jared Throne: Sure.
Anime Herald: How do you feel about two hours of free parking, Monday through Friday?
Jared Throne: I love it. I love her.
Anime Herald: A lot of the other characters are types that we have seen before in other novels. She was one of your originals. What inspired you to include her?
Jared Throne: It was a couple of things. Wes’ character was the digital guy. He’s the hacker dude who knows the tech side of it. I thought it would be fun if he had a companion who leaned into that. I also like that Wes is kind of a little bit of a dick. He’ll half do something like, “It’s good enough for me, it works well.” Seemed funny to me. I think she creates a little bit of comic relief. It’s a nice break-up from some of the heavier themes. She’s going around, a little quirky and a little weird.
Anime Herald: She was my favorite character by far. Where did you get the idea for Bridge Planet Nine? What was your original concept?
Jared Throne: It was a sci-fi heist. Combining science fiction with a heist story felt interesting. Also, leaning into the themes of self-automated machinery. Self-manned ships. Creating a situation where they should be able to pull off this heist without anyone around for millions of miles. That was the original idea that sparked everything else.
There’s something interesting about someone being able to fly out into space, and do this, and no one will be around. Of course, unfortunately that’s not what happens in the book.
Anime Herald: That’s not what happens in the book, but it’s what one of the corporations would have liked to have happen in the book. That is where a lot of the darkness in the story comes from. Where did you get that idea?
Jared Throne: That corporations are bad?
Anime Herald: That corporations are that bad.
Jared Throne: It’s not hard to find inspiration that corporations are bad.
To me, science fiction and a lot of horror stories take things that we know are true, and they dial it up to eleven. They take a concept that we’re all aware of, and they make it way worse to try and prove a point. To me, that’s where it came from. We know companies do terrible things. What if they were even worse? Maybe some are that bad.
Anime Herald: We could talk about Nestlé.
Jared Throne: Sure. That’s the idea. Try to unravel the reality of the world by putting in a more extreme example.
Anime Herald: How did you get involved with Top Shelf Productions?
Jared Throne: I met Chris (Staros) at some shows. I had a couple of calls with him. This is my second graphic novel. He had looked through my first one as well, and given me a lot of feedback. I developed a relationship with him. When this book started coming together, I got in touch with him. He was into it, but we did reword it quite a bit. He said “I think this is great, but it needs some help.” And he was right.
It was a new experience for me, as someone who had been self-published up to this point. Having someone more involved in the story, in a helpful way. Giving feedback and a good perspective on certain decisions. Helping it come together. It’s been great, and I think the book is a lot better for it. The cool thing is I just like Top Shelf. I didn’t have to schmooze. I was like, “I have these books on my shelf. I buy this stuff all the time. I’m thrilled to work with you guys.”
Anime Herald: Let’s jump into the weeds. What changes did Chris make to the book? How did the book evolve from your initial vision to what he saw and recommended?
Jared Throne: I wouldn’t say he made any changes. There were some structural changes. There were aliens in the book originally. There was more of that kind of thing. The book got a lot tighter and cut the extraneous things.
Anime Herald: Do you have future books in the timeline?
Jared Throne: I am working on a couple of things. Nothing firm yet, but I am planning on making more graphic novels. That’s for sure.
Anime Herald: You’ve been inspired by cinema. What are some of the films that come to mind as having influenced you as a creator, or just as a person?
Jared Throne: Oh man. For this book, I love Alien. I say that in all of these interviews. I love Aliens, especially the first movie. I think that’s pretty transparent when you read the book. I’m also a big fan of The Matrix. I like Stranger Than Fiction. I love a lot of the early M. Night Shyamalan. That’s sort of a hot take these days.
Anime Herald: He’s a loon, but his early films were fire.
Jared Throne: Yeah. A lot of horror movies. Good horror. I’m into the elevated horror from the last twenty years.
Anime Herald: Any elevated horror films of note?
Jared Throne: I liked Hereditary. It’s tough. I feel like I love certain things about all of these movies and I don’t like other things about them. A lot of the A24 stuff is really good. Midsommar. I like that people are making stuff like that. I like slashers, they’re fun. But I just saw Weapons. It’s a horror movie, but it’s very well thought out. It feels like it has a lot of substance and structure, as opposed to let’s just hack and slash some people. I love horror, but I love Horror that is just a good movie.
Anime Herald: You also read a lot of comics. What are some of your favorites from the past few decades?
Jared Throne. I love Paper Girls. Seven to Eternity. I read that again recently. I’m really into the new (Alfred) Avison Batman books. I’m also into graphic novels. I love Tillie Walden. I love a lot of the indie novel stuff. I have a big pull list. I love a good graphic novel.
Anime Herald: You work in design. How did that help you, particularly when working in black & white, where you can’t hide anything. All the lines are clean. How did your design sense help you with this?
Jared Throne: I think it’s huge. I work as a designer. I’ve been doing that for a long time. I think it helps a ton with layouts. I work in branding a lot. I think there’s a sense of structure and a systematic approach to art with a lot of comics and graphic novels that parallels a lot of branding design work. You pick your set amount of lines and tones to create that consistent feeling throughout the book.
You can break it at certain times and moments. I think it ties in a lot with that feeling of cohesive consistency from page to page. I think it is also a nice way to help me with the things I don’t feel as good at. I use design to help it feel okay. “Okay, maybe I’m not the best at drawing x, y, z, but let’s make this page an interesting layout that feels dynamic and clear.” That can compensate for things that I feel are not my strengths.
Anime Herald: You have older brothers that helped get you into comic books. What are some of the comics that they handed down to you?
Jared Throne: Oh yeah! Spawn, 100%. WildC.A.T.S. The Violator series, which is weirdly somehow hard to find. A lot of Spider-Man. Death of Superman. A ton of X-Men comics. Of course, I grew up with the X-Men cartoon, and the Spider-Man cartoon. It’s all blended in there together. But when I think of my brothers, I think of stealing their copies of Spawn 1-20, which is also not great for a kid to read. But I was into it.
Anime Herald: It really depends on the kid.
Jared Throne: Sure.
Anime Herald: You turned out okay-ish.
Jared Throne: You don’t know me that well, but sure.
Anime Herald: What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?
Jared Throne: Exactly.
Anime Herald: What made you decide to start writing to begin with? A lot of people read comics. Fewer people make them.
Jared Throne: That’s a great question. I started out more with writing than with art. I got into the arts to help me feel like a better writer. Writing comics is fun. Brian K. Vaughan was talking about it yesterday during the panel. There’s something about comics that feels so direct in a line, in terms of creating stories, as opposed to movies or video games, where you have so many people involved. Not that I am anywhere near those industries.
With comics, it feels like you have an idea, you write it, you put some visuals behind it. You’re giving the readers a little bit more when opposed to a novel. I’m also just a born and bred creative person. When I like something and I’m into it, which happens a lot, I want to try and make it. I think comics clicked with me, “I love comics. I want to do this.”
Anime Herald: That’s very cool. What advice do you have for aspiring creators who might want to go the independent route?
Jared Throne: I’ll give you two things. The first is a piece of generic advice that everyone says, and then I’ll give you something more personal. The generic advice is, “Make comics.” You’d be surprised how many people say they’d like to make a book. They say that for years, that they have this idea and they’re sketching it out. To me, it’s a little akin to songwriting. People don’t write one song and have a hit. They write one hundred songs. They’re in bands. They’re trying stuff.
With comics, sometimes people feel like they want to write one book and have it be awesome. I want to write the next Walking Dead. You really just need to write, write, write. Make comics, make stuff. Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission, or to find the perfect artist to collaborate with. That’s the advice that a lot of people give.
The more specific advice is to write stories that are about you that are honest. I think a lot of people, especially in indie comics, they come up with a quirky idea, something they think is fun. But I think people connect with stories that feel emotionally honest, that are about you in certain ways. Even if it’s not direct. I’ve never been to space or gone on a heist. You try to put in some of your personal values, your perspective. I think that’s what resonates with people. I think when people are starting out, they are trying to write something cool. Something that seems fun, but they are not connecting with the expression of writing. I think that’s the core of almost any creative endeavor.
Anime Herald: What would you like our readers to know about Bridge Planet Nine?
Jared Throne: I am very excited about it. People give advice, saying, “You should write something that you would buy.” I would absolutely buy this. I think it’s an exciting adventure. It has space travel, some scary moments in it. I feel like it has some unique stuff that maybe you haven’t seen recently in some other books. It’s kind of a mix. I’m really proud of how it turned out.
Anime Herald: For me, it gives off Bande dessinée vibes. The stylistic cover, [Redacted] dying. It’s very art house.
Jared Throne: Thank you. That’s a compliment.
Anime Herald: What would you like our readers to know about you?
Jared Throne: I love comics. You’d be surprised by how many make comics who don’t read a lot. I’m constantly reading comics. I love comics. I want to make comics. I’m going to keep making comics. I’m a music guy and a design guy. I hope that comes across.
Anime Herald: Finally, do you have any questions for us?
Jared Throne: Tell me more about books you like that this fits in with. If the answer to a question was, “I think you should read Bridge Planet Nine and these three other books”, what would the three other books be?
Anime Herald: #1 by a mile is East of West.
Jared Throne: I love East of West. It was a huge inspiration for this. Also, probably one of the prettiest comics ever made.
Anime Herald: #2, and not because it belongs, but because I want more people to read it, is Saga.
Jared Throne: Another heavy hitter.
Anime Herald: #3, Streets of Paris, Streets of Murder. I love the work of Jaqcues Tardi. When I said Bande dessinée vibes, that’s what I was thinking of.
Jared Throne: I’ll check it out. Thank you.
Anime Herald: Thank you very much.