USNA Chat with the Stanleigh Brothers
This interview was conducted by Chris Doucher, Editor-in-Chief, Writer and Comic Panel Moderator for GeekNerdNet. (Image credits to: Chris Doucher/GeekNerdNet, Allan and Larry Stanleigh)
L to R: Allan Stanleigh, writer/creator of USNA and Larry Stanleigh, Executive Producer (image credits to: Chris Doucher/GeekNerdNet, and Allan and Larry Stanleigh)
Earlier this year, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting brothers Allan and Larry Stanleigh at Calgary Expo 2025. Allan is the creator and writer behind the hit Canadian graphic novel series: USNA (United States of North America), and his brother Larry is the Executive Producer. These two super fun, Star Trek-loving, funny and creative gentlemen were kind enough to tell me all about the series USNA. At the time of this interview, rhetoric of Canada becoming a “51st State” was high on all broadcast and online news channels across Canada and the United States. To say this interview to talk about USNA came at a perfect time is a massive understatement.
The USNA story takes place in the near future, where Canada and the United States have amalgamated and call themselves the United States of North America. Originally, the idea came from Davy Longworth when he shared illustrations he had drawn of tractor combines with the letters USNA over them, and wondered if there’s a story he and Allan write. Over the curse of a year, Allan and Davy worked on the first draft of the overall story. After this, they turned it into a film screenplay. With finished product in hand, they pitched the screenplay various times over the years. Unfortunately, some outlets felt the idea was deemed to potentially make one country (either Canada or the USA) look worse over the other, as well as the cost of shooting in various locations. This caused them to hit pause on pitching.
Fast forward a decade or so, Allan’s brother Larry came in as an Executive Producer. A fan of modern-era classic graphic novels including WATCHMEN and SIN CITY, which were both turned into successful movies, Larry thought:
“…what if we did the reverse and took this movie screenplay and made it into a graphic novel…let’s make this happen…and we made it happen…”
Eventually, after much fan love at conventions for the first book, Allan and his creative team went on to make USNA !! featuring art by Costa-Rican Canadian and Vancouver-based comic artist, Francine Delgado. Allan tells a great story of how in the first USNA graphic novel, artist Dave Casey drew directly from the screenplay and would go back to the team for approval. When it came to USNA II, Delgado asked for the scripts to be put into comic-book format, broken down by panels per page and dialogue per panel. When it came to writing for a comic style, Allan (having only written in screenplay format) said:
“To think in comic book format was really alien to us because screenplays are written where you set it up as (say an) interior of room…and then you’d write whatever the dialogue…but when it came to a comic-book format you actually had to visualize a comic and you had to think about the visual flow…it’s a different kind of thinking than just writing words down.”
Please hit play below and enjoy the entire interview, and stay to the end to for a bonus chat about Allan and Larry’s fantastic, and always logical Star Trek cosplay at Calgary Expo. One more thing, when you see these two at a convention, stop by their table and pick up a copy of USNA and USNA II. You’ll be happy you did.