Comic-book legend Bryan Talbot has been called the Godfather of British Comics, and with titles like the groundbreaking steampunk epic The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (widely credited as the first British graphic novel), his dark, award-winning take on Beatrix Potter in The Tale of One Bad Rat, and the recent mind-blowing graphic-novel opus Alice in Sunderland to his credit, it’s tough to argue with that title. We caught up with the iconic creator at this month’s Big Apple National convention in New York City, where we had the pleasure of seeing Talbot’s face light up as we showed him our copy of Absolute Sandman: Volume 2 – containing his Sandman Special, “Orpheus”. Despite owning a copy himself, Talbot had not yet cracked open the book, and he could barely contain his delight upon learning the blood in the massacre scene is finally, in this new presentation, colored the way he’d always intended it to be – with plenty of bright red. Ever the professional, however, Talbot composed himself and shared some info with us on his next projects, including the sure-to-be-wonderful steampunk thriller Grandville. Read our exclusive interview after the jump!

What are you currently working on?
I'm working on a new graphic novel called Grandville, which I need to finish – still have 15 pages to do. It's taking a long time. I'm putting it on the computer and it's actually taking longer to do the colors than using pencils and ink.

How would you describe Grandville?
The story is a steampunk detective-thriller, but with animals. I've never done something like this before, so it was a nice challenge. It's inspired by Grandville, the mid-19th Century French Illustrator. His name was Jean Gerard but he signed himself Grandville quite often. He used to draw these anthropomorphic characters dressed in contemporary costumes, and very often they were part of some kind of political satire, which I'm trying to do in the book. Another influence is the French science-fiction illustrator Albert Robida – he worked during the turn of the 20th century in France. He was doing videophones and time machines and all sorts of things. So yeah, it's been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Quentin Tarantino – but with animals. But it's set in the Grandville of the time, Paris, the center of a huge French empire. The protagonist is an English working-class badger, Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard. It's one of these stories that starts very small and goes big. It starts with an investigation of a murder in a little English village and it gets bigger as it goes along. It's got a James Bond ending.

When's it due?
It's due for publication in October of next year.

What's next for you after Grandville? Can you see yourself revisiting Luther Arkwright at some point?
Yeah, I do have a Luther Arkwright story I've been working on. I may even do it next. I'm not sure. I've got two or three different graphic novel ideas I've been thinking about. But then again I may do something else. It all depends on what happens really. I mean at some point I'm supposed to do a graphic novel with an Australian poet, called Dorothy Porter. She's a poet who does novels in poetry, a series of poems – big crime thrillers in poems. She's really hard-edged. But these poems, put together, they tell a really compelling narrative. She suggested we do a collaboration. So it'd be a poem in comics.

That would seem to match the sensibility you demonstrated in Alice in Sunderland.
A series of little stories, yeah. Yeah, it was quite experimental, Alice. I've never really done anything like it.

In real life, what's your greatest fear?
Getting hurt by disease, and dying slowly in pain.