When creators hammer away developing new content, they often turn to music while they work. Sometimes specific genres will inspire where they set a story, maybe they think about a particular beat from a certain song as they script or draw a fight scene, or if anyone’s like me, they listen to Hamilton so much the lyrics end up in the finished product. Cartoonist and writer Chris Hunt was inspired by a variety of music when he worked on his creator owned comic Carver: A Paris Story. The black and white pulp-style comic is on shelves as a book from Z2 Comics, and to celebrate, Hunt looked at his story and put together a playlist on Spotify. We’re happy to exclusively share his picks with you:

Carver: A Paris Story is about adventure, so Hunt’s song choices reflect the tone. If you’re not familiar with the comic, it centers on Francis Carver and is set in 1923 Paris. He’s trying to assist the woman he loves because her daughter has been kidnapped by gang leader Stacker Lee. A chase ensues as Carver decides whether he can step up.

Back to the playlist: the tunes include artists such as There Will Be Blood, Josh Ritter, Mumford and Sons, and more. Some selections influenced characters and others simply make creative juices flow. For example, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ “Stagger Lee” drove the look of Stacker. Hunt said, “The original bad mother f*#&er. Cave’s version was my first exposure to the American Folk legend of Stacker Lee. There have been so many versions of the real story in popular culture now, it’s hard to know where the truth of the original story begins and ends, but I thought it would be interesting to incorporate a character into my universe that had an almost mythological grounding in the real world. This song just gets me into a certain, shall we say ‘mindset.’ When conceiving Stacker as he would appear in Carver, I basically sat down at my desk, put this song on and had his look dialed in, in about 20 minutes.”

Typhoon’s “The Honest Truth” influenced Francis Carver. “This song reinforces a lot for me that bled into Francis the character eventually. It became something of a mantra in that it echoes my own feelings that life is unfair, fleeting and cruel but that’s no excuse to stop fighting for the light or to stop trying to be good,” Hunt said.

Once you’ve listened to the playlist, drop to the gallery below to see the cover and a few pages from Carver: A Paris Story. Then, share your favorite songs from Hunt’s playlist with me in the comments.

Images: Z2 Comics/Chris Hunt