Imagine a world where a cataclysmic war with giants, the “Omega Event”, ended with the entire continent of Australia being ceded to them. This is the fascinating, lived-in, and deeply scarred setting of Huge Detective. The series, from writer Adam Rose and artist Magenta King, takes the “unlikely partners” trope to its literal extreme, pairing the human Detective Tamaki with the colossal Detective GYANT to solve a mystery in a city still reeling from its past.
We spoke with Adam Rose about the incredible challenge of building this world, from the noir-inspired plot to the logistics of a detective who can look over buildings. We discussed his film influences (from Alien Nation to Pacific Rim), the exciting news of a screenplay adaptation, and which tabletop roleplaying game systems he feels would be the perfect fit for this universe. Read on for our full chat, and be sure to pick up Huge Detective to explore this amazing world for yourself.
An interview with Adam Rose
The elevator pitch of “Chinatown meets Roald Dahl’s The BFG” is immediately compelling. Could you talk a bit about how you balanced those gritty, noir detective elements with the more fantastical, almost storybook, feeling of a world with giants?
First off, thanks so much for inviting me to chat about Huge Detective! Balancing the noir and fantasy elements was the mystery I loved solving the most! I’ve always been a big fan of both genres and have read authors like Chandler, Leonard, Piers Anthony, and Tolkien, among others, to inspire the hybrid world of Huge Detective. The main characters’ relationship with their realms and each other really helped ground and combine the fantasy and noir elements.
Our readers are huge fans of world-building. The “Omega Event” and the decision to give Australia to the GYANTs is such a concrete and fascinating starting point. What were some of the “rules” or key historical beats you established for yourself early on to make this world feel consistent and lived-in?
The “Omega Event” is key to the traumatic history of Huge Detective and leaves the door wide open for all kinds of other stories from that time and everything in between. Magenta and I talked a lot about making the world feel “lived in,” and that requires a lot of details from the incorporation of Huge fossils from the Omega Event to the stitched-together human materials of Detective Gyant’s clothing. The Omega Event left a permanent physical and psychological scar on all the sentient inhabitants of the world. I tried to make sure the reader sees it in other small ways, like faded billboards or ads from the time of the war between Huge and human to mentions of a “Jolly Green Giant Killer” on the side of a bazooka. I know that the amazing people of Australia might not be too thrilled with the choice of their wonderful country, but I also tried to show that the resistance continues, and not every Australian left their homeland. Overall, I knew the key was having easter eggs of signs/clues of this wounded world on every page that gives the reader a chance to feel as if they are part of it, and hopefully feel the weight of the Omega Event. In my opinion, we never really fully recover from collectively shared traumatic events, and I wanted to make sure Huge Detective was careful in how it depicted that.
Detective GYANT and Detective Tamaki are a classic “unlikely partners” duo, but with the most extreme physical difference imaginable. What was the key to finding their chemistry on the page, and how did you approach writing dialogue between two characters who are literally worlds apart in scale?
Gyant and Tamaki are not only unlikely partners but also unwilling. The short answer is that I treated them both like parts of the same whole. Although they come from opposite ends of the earth, they both have lived through unspeakable horrors, both self-inflicted and inflicted. I always try to write a character that speaks from the heart. Tamaki and Gyant really took over on the page for me, and I let their relationship symbolise an attempt at healing and an attempt at empathy for one’s opposite. I also thought a lot about both their personal backgrounds, families, and hang-ups. Tamaki and Gyant have personal struggles that the reader glimpses throughout the series. I think having these characters see one another’s vulnerabilities helps bring about an increased understanding of one another that helps the final chapter end with a bang.
This is a question I know our Game Master readers will love: How do you plot a mystery when one of your detectives can literally look over buildings and the other has to use the door? How did that incredible power and scale imbalance shape the actual investigation?
Great question on the logistics of scale and perspective and how it relates to our mystery! The short answer is that the majority of the mystery develops in interior spaces. I wanted a sense of claustrophobia for Tamaki, Gyant, and Manny. At first, Magenta King was intimidated by some of the scale/POV challenges the story presented, but he came up with some really inventive ways to show Tamaki and Gyant in the same scene/panel. I hope the choices made enhance the reader’s view of the mystery as a puzzle that slowly unfolds over the course of the five issues. I tried to have the “case files” help enrich the mystery and give bonus clues as to the big picture of the story.
If you were to run a tabletop RPG set in the Huge Detective universe, what game system do you think would be the best fit, and what sort of adventures would you want to send your players on?
First off, I would love to see Huge Detective as a tabletop RPG! I think the Gumshoe system would be a lot of fun, but I am sure others could be equally great! I could see murder mysteries involving the realm of Brodinbag (formerly known as Australia) or a mystery in Dollsville could be quite intriguing!
Magenta King’s art is incredible at conveying the sheer scale of this world. Was there a particular scene or panel that you wrote where you thought, “I have no idea how he’s going to draw this,” and were then completely blown away by what he came back with?
Working with Magenta has been a dream come true! We met via Zoom all the time to break down how best to depict some of the trickier scenes. I think the most challenging and the one that blew my mind was how he showed Detective Gyant underwater and coming up in the caverns of Belter’s Cave. The visuals he created to show Gyant navigating the cave and searching for clues exceeded my expectations!
The supplemental “case files” in the single issues are a fantastic touch for lore lovers. What was one detail from those files that you were especially excited to share—something that might not have been central to the main plot but you felt was crucial to understanding the world of Huge Detective?
The “Melbourne” Case File gave valuable insights into what Gyant had to overcome to even be willing to come back to the world of the “beans.” I hoped it suggested how complex his journey must have been to be the one Huge selected to be trained in the ways of humans and fight the urge to “gobbler” and be willing to tolerate the physical pain involved with pushing words out of his throat instead of talking telepathically. Of course, I weaved another reason into Gyant being the one Huge up to speak out loud due to his own family and some of the challenges his daughter has to handle in the world of the Huge.
In your recent chat with The Beat, you mentioned some fantastic film influences like Enemy Mine and Alien Nation. Are there any tabletop RPGs or game settings that have sparked your imagination or influenced your approach to storytelling and world-building?
Hmmm, I can’t say I have any specific tabletop RPGs, BUT I would say that Kieron Gillan’s Die comic series and its fantasy/D&D world-building definitely was inspiring. I’ve also just started reading Dungeon Crawler Carl and find this world to be quite thrilling!
The news about a potential film adaptation is very exciting! As you work on translating the story to a screenplay, have you discovered new things about the characters or the world? Does the process of adapting it for a different medium change how you view the source material at all?
I just finished reviewing the current draft of the screenplay and love the direction we are taking it! The adaptation process has been a fascinating journey, and one of the new elements is bringing in an additional human partner for Tamaki. We still hold on to the fantasy/noir, but have added influences like the movies Seven and Pacific Rim to the mix. We are trying to carefully maintain key relationships like the one between Gyant and Tamaki, Tamaki and her father, and Manny and his mother. The world-building has been a ton of fun because the sandbox of Huge Detective lends itself to scenes and settings that have been so easy to add to the screenplay.
Beyond just being a great detective story, Huge Detective touches on deep themes of trauma, prejudice, and connection. When people finish the book, what’s the one feeling or idea you hope stays with them?
It has always been, and continues to be, important to me that the themes of empathy and communication serve as pivotal parts of this work. The one idea I hope resonates with people is the importance of looking beyond their own bubbles. Now more than ever, we need to be willing to put our phones down and truly see the person standing in line with us at the coffee shop or inching past us in rush-hour traffic. I know it’s a bit pie-in-the-sky, but I hope the fun and action of Huge Detective also remind people not to make knee-jerk reactions—to each other or to the status quo.
Thanks, Adam!
Titan Comics publishes the Huge Detective paperback collection and is available from 4th November 2025.
