Ivana Fanboy: Let's start with your relationship with Top Cow. When did you first write for Witchblade, and what's your attraction to the series?
David Quinn: I was doing quick, pinch-hit scripting for Top Cow editor Dave Wohl. The series was Ascension--months behind and not always delivering where story was concerned, it needed a writer who could work quickly, and tie together several dangling plot lines. I tried to pull it together, but I only succeeded in getting it back on schedule. I was frustrated. I wanted to tell a story I would begin, develop, and end, not simply doctoring someone else's. So I was invited to pitch the "Tales Of..." titles, and I concocted springboard treatments for a bent handful of Witchblade and Darkness spinoffs, stories that got playful with the darker corners of their mythologies, just self-contained, fun stuff. How would you like to meet the man who knew the Darkness in L.A. in 1950, A.K.A The Blood Poet? Ever wonder how Witchblade would deal with Brujeria in Haiti? (That's the darker side of what we sometimes label "Voodoo.") And what looks like a superhero but was responsible for the fall of Atlantis? Stuff like that. So, these might come to the quarterlies someday, but in the meantime, my first published Witchblade will be Mindhunter #1 -- which is actually my Dark Horse, Aliens, and Predator debut, too.
IF: How did you get involved with the Dark Horse/TC cross-overs?
DQ: Phil Amara heard the wisdom in my madness when I suggested the thing. He knew my work on Faust, Nightvision, and Disney's Gargoyles, but he trusted me anyway, heh heh. To tell the truth, I think the conversation began with me twisting his arm to publish several cool creator-owned properties at Dark Horse, so I would have to give Phil credit for spinning me.
IF: How did you get into comics? Was Faust your first comics work, or did you dabble before that?
DQ: Faust is my only comics work, Ivana. Everything else is channeled from the dead. I just type it up. No, Faust came first. I was writing music, theater, and fiction when partner Tim Vigil brought me in to the biz. We've brought out Faustian mini-series (Avatar Press) in the last few years (ala Grendel and Mage) while we complete the original 13-part drama, which will be 14 years in the making by the time it hits stores. There's a movie hitting this fall, and a novel and a CD next year. The CD is words without pictures, spoken word style. Ivana, everyone knows Faust, but I have to add, not everyone knows that I've written two or three stories a month for nearly every publisher in the industry (Dark Horse was the last to succumb) for about twelve years. Everything from superhero and cartoon adventures to adult comics, to my Not-for-Children Childrens' Books like The Red Flannel Squirrel and The 13 Days of Christmas (Sirius).
IF: As strange as this crossover might first sound to readers, all of the elements fit together in a cool and convincing way -- and you've sort of naturally paired Sara with the Aliens and Jackie with the Predator. How does this melded universe work in your mind, and what is the overall gist of what's going on in your story?
DQ: It all comes down to the home team versus the aliens in a lethal arena--but we also dramatize an internal conflict I call the hunters (Witchblade-Predator) versus the breeders (Darkness-Aliens). You have to read it.
IF: Forgive me for not being more familiar with the Witchblade/Darkness material, but can you explain their relationship to me? Do they regularly appear in comics together, or is this something that's rare?
DQ: Sara Pezzini and Jackie Estacado have to dance very carefully. She's a detective, he's a hit man. Neither one understands the other's terrible, talent-wasting choice of profession. But they respect each other. And then there's that spark of attraction, that gentle smoldering, even when they have their guns trained on each other. I don't run the zoo at Top Cow, but I think the sparks between the characters remain hotter when they seldom meet. I've offered to write more stories for them if our friends Paul Jenkins and Scott Lobdell ever need a break, but I would keep them far apart. Jackie and Sara scare each other, authentically.
IF: This series is one of those psychologically-complex, wryly funny, dark adventures -- and it seems to fit in pretty well with other stuff you've done. Is this your preferred genre? Have you written much in the way of sci-fi or horror? What are your favorite kinds of stories to tell?
Here's one kind of story that seems important to me. Looking back at some of my other work, like my years on Dr. Strange, an upcoming Batman mini-series, and one of my film projects, This Year's Girl, I notice I love the tale that pulls the rug out from under the hero -- and the reader! I've always loved stories that escalate out of control -- where human warriors jump in to a game they've mastered with both feet, only to find that the game changes with every victory, leaving them in a darker and more desperate place. That's what made the best of the Aliens and Predator stories reach so many people -- and now that I've been working with Sara and Jackie for a while, I know they are the kind of characters who can reach down into themselves and dredge up the stuff of true heroism.
Character and Story are one to me. I am at home in the infamy of extreme horror, but I am also at home in suspense, and good old kitchen sink drama! I enjoy comedy--if it's a slightly quirky kind of comedy, a little gallows humor. Of course, Halloween is my favorite holiday, and the one time of year every comics shop realizes that it would be cool to have me come sign, but in a way, that only shows that horror is something I can sell, not that it is the only thing I write.
IF: You mentioned in an earlier interview with WizardWorld online that you teach a college writing course. Tell me more about that. How did that come about, and what sorts of writing do you teach?
DQ: I get a great stretch from teaching literature and composition. Keeps my on my toes, keeps me honest about my craft, because I make my students work hard -- critical thinking and expressive communication are two of the best power tools they'll ever own. On the creative side, I teach an all visual, all interactive storytelling creative writing class: from theater, to film, to digital, to comics, we do it all. Making a case for the primal importance of the storyteller's campfire in our lives, Robert McKee's Story invites readers to draw near to hear the voice of Kenneth Burke, pronouncing: "Stories are equipment for living." Here's my gig: in a world of media immersion, where the storyteller's campfire may glow inside a home theater system, a personal computer on a network, a four-color, hardbound graphic novel, or a photocopied, self-published `zine, Visual Storytelling becomes our equipment for living. What does that say about us? What is Visual Storytelling -- and why is it more than simply illustrated prose? What stories are we telling? How do we tell them?
IF: You're probably pretty familiar with the tastes and preferences of your readers -- how do you expect they'll react to Mindhunter?
DQ: They're gonna scream when they see how much fun I had -- and got away with it.
IF: What's next for David Quinn?
DQ: More storytelling across all media. I'm using web comics to show people that their assumptions about comics -- and my comics -- are more limited than they know.
Look for the first issue of Witchblade/Aliens/Darkness/Predator -- Mindhunter, written by David Quinn with art by Mel Rubi, on sale December 22.