Red 5 Comics Interview: Something Beyond the Petrichor
Feb 27, 2025
Red 5 Comics is taking advantage of this year's Free Comic Book Day in a big way and using it as an opportunity to launch three brand new series. Their book, Red 5 Comic Adventures, offers readers a sneak peeks into each of these new stories. And what you get is enticing enough to have you coming back for the full thing. In an exclusive prologue for "Enigmatown", you know the story of the child's plaything becoming a real boy, but what happens when the real boy becomes a child's toy? Then, after acid rain destroys the world, Jocelyn Alvarez must venture into the wasteland in search of "Something Beyond the Petrichor". And when teenager Jennifer Gaitlin dons the ancient helmet of Wukong, she gains the experiences and abilities of every warrior who has ever worn it to become "Snow Monkey"!
We got the opportunity to catch up with each of the creators behind this explosive FCBD sampler to hear more about what inspired their stories and what lies ahead in their series. Today, we catch up with Dakota Brown, creator behind Something Beyond the Petrichor, to get the inside scoop on this sci-fi horror FCBD adventure.
Make sure to grab your copy of Red 5 Comic Adventures on May 3 for FCBD to get your first full look at Soemthing Beyond the Petrichor. Find a participating comic near you!
Free Comic Book Day (FCBD): Set up your title for those who might be new to your comic book: What will new readers need to know before diving into your Free Comic Book Day issue?
Dakota Brown: “Something Beyond the Petrichor” is the story of a young woman named Jocelyn, her talking stuffed turtle, and a Bible Belt Cryptid who journey through a wasteland devastated by acid rain to search for any remnants of society that might be out there. Luckily for Jocelyn, the acid rain doesn’t melt plastic, so she leaves her tarp-covered home equipped with a raincoat, umbrella, and a water gun full of acid rain that’s ready to blast the otherworldly oddities she comes across on her journey.
FCBD: What are some of the key themes present in your book? What do you hope readers take away from your title?
Brown: While it’s easily classified as a sci-fi adventure with equal parts horror and humor, “Something Beyond the Petrichor” is a story about finding one’s place in a world they had no hand in making. Beyond enjoying the genre read, I hope readers are left with a small meditation on our society as a whole and how they see themselves within it. 
FCBD: What part of the book was most fun to write/draw?
Brown: This was a fun script to write from beginning to end, even including the drafts and scenes that were cut completely in the process. It’s hard not to love writing for Jocelyn’s stuffed turtle Quigley, though, as his neurotic tendencies are tendencies I typically feel the need to keep at bay.
FCBD: Can you share some of the inspiration behind certain characters, settings, etc.?
Brown: The characters have gone through various changes through the years as the story has had major shifts in narrative, world, and themes, so it’s hard to pinpoint a single influence at this point for most of the gang. Jocelyn’s father Omar, however, is inspired by the father I hope to be for my son. He’s as playful and fun as he is capable and confident, and I hope I can show my son as much love as Omar does for Jocelyn.
FCBD: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
Brown: This is difficult to answer without spoiling the specific theme revealed in the story, so I’ll have to cop out here and say, “give it a read to find out!”
FCBD: Looking to the future, is there anything you can tease about what’s coming up for the title and its characters?
Brown: All I can say is that I hope to revisit characters in a new adventure set after this four-issue series.
FCBD: Many newcomers will pick up comics for the first time on FCBD – what was the first comic you remember reading? What got you into comics?
Brown: The first comic I ever read was “Marvel Tales Featuring: Spider-Man, Issue 247” (which was a reprint of the incredible “Marvel Team-Up Annual, Issue 6”). I don’t know if it was bought for me specifically or it was handed down to me from my father’s collection, but it was an incredible first read. It features a (mostly) stand-alone story with Spider-Man, the New Mutants, and Cloak and Dagger (my dream characters to write), and it is an incredible time-capsule of the era. I met these characters in media res and had to know more about them and their origins. With each new comic I read, I met other new-to-me characters and their stories and kept having to know more. The cycle continues to this day.
FCBD: What’s the most important aspect of collaboration in comics, and how do you ensure that all team members’ contributions align with the story you’re trying to tell?
Brown: As a writer, I want to make sure that collaborations with artists and letterers are true collaborations. The final script before sending off to the artist is not the final script. As the creation process goes, the artist and letter will make contributions that inform the script in ways I didn’t foresee. In “Something Beyond the Petrichor”, for example, artist David Lujan’s character design for a Southern Cryptid was very unlike what I had in mind… and I loved it! There were shifts made in the script to accompany the design difference, and character relationships shifted in ways I hadn’t imagined before. It’s a magic that is only available to creators who are open to true collaboration.
FCBD: What is the most challenging part of creating for the comic book medium, and how do you overcome it?
Brown: The comic medium demands a respect for panel-to-panel flow and how a reader experiences each page, so it’s important to outline each page and its panels before jumping into the actual scripting whenever possible. Each panel is like a paragraph in a novel – it exists to capture a specific moment in the story that the reader needs to experience within the context of the scene.
FCBD: Tell us why everyone should read comic books!
Brown: Comics have a point of view that other mediums struggle to showcase. With the aid of narrations, captions, thought bubbles, and basic speech bubbles, comics have a unique perspective that combines and surpasses first-, second-, and third-person narrators.
FCBD: If you have a local comic shop you want to plug, maybe where you can be found on FCBD, give them a shoutout!
Brown: I’ll be at Chattanooga’s Epikos CCG signing copies and chatting comics!
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FCBD: We have a series of rapid-fire questions for you! They’re, you know, sort of related to comics... Answer as quickly as you can and try not to over think it!
If you had to assign a soundtrack to your FCBD book, what genre would the music be?
Celtic New-Age
Speaking of genre, what’s your favorite comic book genre?
I’m a sucker for capes and horror.
If you were a comic book character, would you rather be the hero or the villain?
Hero, but maybe one that works a bit outside the bounds of the law when necessary.
Everyone in the world gets to choose a power, but the more people that choose the same power, the weaker that power will be. What power do you choose?
Power absorption. Is that a loophole? I think that’s a loophole.
If you could steal one gadget or weapon from any comic book, what would it be?
I wouldn’t mind a few goes on a Cosmic Cube. For benevolence only, I swear…
If you were sucked into a comic Jumanji-style, which comic would you most want to be put into?
I would love to know that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are just a sewer grate away.
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Rating: Teen
