What if you died and instead of passing on, you and your best friend stayed in limbo to solve supernatural cases? Well that's the reality of the Dead Boy Detectives, Netflix's newest series from the same universe as The Sandman.
Out had the chance to sit down with the brains behind the series, creator and co-showrunner Steve Yockey, during a special event in New York celebrating the release of the series.
Yockey has been vocal about this being a queer series at its core, while also pushing the importance of representation in media in a realistic way. We asked the showrunner why representation was important to him and why he personally pushed for it.
"Two things. Representation matters, especially right now, it feels like we're in a little bit of a regressive time. Not a little bit… a regressive time," Yockey told Out. "So that's obviously important, but it's important to present different gay stories. Some of the characters are queer, and they're just queer and it's a part of their life. Some of them are discovering their identity. There's a lot of variety and types of queer representation. That's really important too because every story can't be a coming out story. After you come out. You have to live your life. So it's nice for people to be able to watch a show where being queer is a piece of it, but they're also solving cases, fighting monsters, trying to avoid death. A lot of stuff is going on."
Dead Boy Detectives is based on a very popular comic series, which can lead to the pressure to keep it authentic to those comics. We asked Yockey if that added additional pressure to bringing it to life or if he wanted to keep his personal spin on the series.
"I think it depends on the property, but I will say with Dead Boy Detectives, I've loved the comic book since I was in high school and had the pleasure of getting to collaborate with Neil Gaiman on this, who also created The Sandman, very famously, and American Gods and Good Omens and all these things. But he said at the very beginning that his favorite thing about Dead Boy Detectives is that, unlike some of his characters like Dream or Death, who need to be Dream and Death, with these characters, each creator has taken them and kind of done something wild with them. He encouraged me to do the same thing. So that freed me from a lot of the expectation. And then it was just about making sure the boys were recognizable in their relationship so that comic book fans could be like, 'Oh, that's Charles and Edwin,' and then go crazy everywhere else."
Considering the two main characters are dead, the shows delves into some pretty gory and graphic situations. One particular storyline involves a father and his family, and though we won't spoil it for you, let's just say it's HEAVY. Scenes like this one tend to create an intense environment on set, so we asked Yockey about that day behind the scenes.
"Well, it was a series of days, but we were in an actual house, and so it was very tight," he shared. "It was cramped, which is a more extreme word for tight, and it was a lot of technical stuff. So when we actually got to shoot those moments, Cheryl Dunye directed that episode and did a great job. It was, I think, a relief to the actors to get to do something because the crew was all just so tight. So I feel like it was a little bit claustrophobic, but it wasn't as traumatic to film it as it is when you watch it, especially when you watch it over and over and over again.
We lightened the mood with a fun last question: With all the supernatural powers in this series, which one would the creator choose for himself?
"My automatic answer would be Crystal because I want to know what other people are thinking, but I don't think that's actually healthy," Yockey responded. "Other people's thoughts are, like, none of your business. So I would maybe go with Esther, I'll be an immortal witch."
Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix.
