INTERVIEW: Cecil Castellucci on writing towards a better tomorrow in SHIFTING EARTH

INTERVIEW: Cecil Castellucci on writing towards a better tomorrow in SHIFTING EARTH

Heat waves, record-breaking temperatures, forest fires, diminishing biodiversity, rampant viruses, resource scarcity – and a heap of anxieties for what the future may hold. It is easy to despair yet Cecil Castellucci, Flavia Biondi, and Fabiana Mascolo have channeled those anxieties into an intriguing parallel worlds story with Shifting Earth, from Dark Horse Comics’s Berger Books imprint.

Beatster Dean Simons chatted with writer Cecil Castellucci about the genesis and themes of the story and its importance for today.

Dean Simons: Shifting Earth introduces two parallel worlds. One seems based on a possible future Earth and the other a place quite different. Each seem to have quite different societies. What would you say are the fundamental value systems between these two worlds?

Cecil Castellucci: I would call the Earth that Dr. Maeve Lindholm comes from a near future Earth, one that is recognizable to us, where the Climate Crisis has not been addressed at all and subsequently all of the consequences of doing nothing are starting to really be a part of day to day life. There’s toxic air, failing plant life, diseases. The parallel Earth evolved differently, so the forces pulling on it are different and the way that they’ve organized society is different. Yet, it too, is familiar. And while Earth 2 has grown to adapt to their world using more of the natural elements for power, they have different struggles in their attempt to survive. Because of the way that they have organized, they seem ahead and behind, because they do as all humans do, use what is around them. Our world, or in this book, I’d call it Earth One, is more individualistic and profit based, and Earth Two, due to its environment, must work together as a whole and as a community. Every person is needed to survive. They don’t look at the planet to serve them, they look at each other to try to survive. Both Earth’s way of surviving has their dark sides if taken to the extreme.

INTERVIEW: Cecil Castellucci on writing towards a better tomorrow in SHIFTING EARTH The Beat, July 29th