‘Evil Dead’ Comes To The Magic: The Gathering Universe [Exclusive Interview]
Justin Wood
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With the recent announcement of the Secret Lair X Evil Dead Magic: The Gathering drop, Dread Central was given an awesome opportunity to have an exclusive interview with Art Director Forrest Schehl over at Secret Lab, along with an exclusive look at some really rad work-in-progress art. Naturally, we jumped at the chance to talk about the process of bringing such an iconic series to Magic: The Gathering.
Dread Central: Before anything, I just want to say the card designs I have seen are gorgeous. Secret Lair has a really incredible eye for detail. No question here just wanted you to know.
Forrest Schehl: That’s so amazing to hear; thank you so much! The whole team was really passionate about this drop and poured their heart into it. I am beyond thrilled that it comes through in the final product!
DC: Evil Dead has such a long and storied series through Film, Video Games, and even TV. Were there talks about gathering iconic scenes from the entire series before landing on the film that started it all?
FS: The whole Evil Dead franchise is just so iconic, and it just keeps building out that incredible mythos. To be honest, there’s enough amazing material in there to inspire hundreds of cards! That being said, it all really came down to a matter of licensing. Our amazing partners over at Striker Entertainment have the rights to The Evil Dead (1981), so our focus had to be on the original film and nothing beyond that. Initially, this was a challenge because I’m sure you’ll agree much of what is iconic about the Evil Dead franchise comes from later entries in the series, but that singular focus really allowed us to celebrate the first movie in a way you don’t always see, and I think that’s part of what makes the final product so special.
DC: Evil Dead has some truly inspiring iconography. What was the process like picking out key moments to adapt to Magic: The Gathering?
FS: That’s a great question! Since this drop is comprised of reprints of popular Magic cards, this process is always a balancing act of picking resonant moments from the IP that are also a good fit for the gameplay design of the cards while making sure the cards we’re picking are good representations of the IP. Once the list of reprints was finalized, it was a matter of working with the team to identify the scenes from that first movie that would fit the mechanics while also telling the story through iconic moments.
That’s how I approached it. I wanted to be able to lay out the cards and have them tell the story of the movie if you put them in the right sequence. That’s why you have the arrival at the cabin, the fateful moment with the recording, and so on. Obviously, compromises need to be made because we aren’t making a comic or other sequential medium, but I think the end result is pretty amazing. It’s almost like the gameplay for these cards was designed from the ground up for this drop.
DC: We can see that unlike a lot of Evil Dead crossovers, Secret Lair has chosen not to focus solely on Bruce Campbell’s character, Ashley Williams, but instead on the overall film. Was this an early decision?
FS: Yes, absolutely. Early in preproduction, our creative leadership team determined that this should be a tribute to this first movie instead of focusing on a singular character. This was very exciting to me; this felt like the most authentic way to approach this drop. The first movie isn’t as focused on Ash as later iterations are. You can see flashes of what Ash will become as a character, but it’s a far cry from the chainsaw-armed anti-hero we’ve come to know and love. So making this a tribute to the origins of the franchise instead of a celebration of that character made a lot of sense.
DC: As a huge fan of Evil Dead myself, the amount of detail in the cards is incredible. What goes into the process of getting the designs set in stone?
FS: That’s a great question. When we work with beloved, iconic properties like Evil Dead, authenticity is first and foremost in our minds. To that end, we reach out to subject matter experts (or SMEs) from all over the company and create a panel that works with us throughout the production of these cards. I was tapped as Art Director for this drop because I’m an Evil Dead SME as well as being an art director for Magic: The Gathering so it felt like a no-brainer. When I got word that I’d be working on this, it was full-blown excitement followed by an even fuller-blown panic attack.
Once the panic subsided, the first thing I was tasked with was determining what the overall artistic direction for this drop would be. There was work done in a few different directions, but I settled on a pulp art style for a few reasons, the first being the fact that Evil Dead has leaned into that pulpy, grindhouse style for advertising in the past so there was already some inspiration out there. But perhaps more importantly, it would free us up to push the boundaries with wild compositions and palettes that would give fans a new take on something they’ve already seen many times. There’s a big difference in summing up a movie’s vibe on a poster versus rendering out specific moments in an illustration, so this felt like a fresh take.
After that, I spent a lot of time watching and rewatching Evil Dead and scouring the internet for prop photos, set photos, behind-the-scenes, and really whatever extra context that would set our artists up for success. I then worked really closely with the very talented writer for these cards, Alia Brandt, to make sure the descriptions we sent to our artists were as authentic and detailed as possible. We really edited those descriptions right up until the moment before we sent them out because that’s how important it was to get them right.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the amazing artists we had who illustrated these cards. They took the assignment very seriously and really poured so much creativity and passion into these pieces. We asked a lot of them, and they met and, in many cases, exceeded our expectations. It was a fun, collaborative endeavor from start to finish.
DC: Secret Lair has multiple times taken MTG to the horror genre. How did the studio land on Evil Dead? Is there a dream set the Studio would like to create?
FS: Haha! Wow, that’s an interesting question. I’m not a permanent member of the Secret Lair team. I work on the main set MTG, so I can’t speak to the inner workings of that very talented group. I do know they are always working on the next exciting creative collaboration, and it’s such a delight to see what they come up with. While I can’t speak for the team at large, for me, I would love to work with John Carpenter on something for Wizards Of The Coast. He’s one of my creative heroes, and it would be amazing to see what sort of horrifying brainchild a collaboration like that would produce
Learn more and grab the set in either foil or non-foil on the Secret Lair website for $39.99 and $29.99, respectively. Shipments are expected to go out on December 19th.
Categorized:Interviews News
