Adam Gallardo: Tell us the idea behind The Blackburne Covenant.
Fabian Nicieza: The idea is rooted in the question all writers get: "Where do your ideas come from?" I wondered, "What if someone's idea for a book came from -- somewhere strange? Somewhere dangerous?" I married that notion to my living condition at the time I first came up with this idea -- which was in 1983! I worked at a book publishing company, a good job out of college. Like all publishing, it was horrible pay, but I enjoyed the company and the people I worked with. I looked around every day and saw successful writers and wannabe writers, successful editors and editors who were wannabe writers. I wondered, at 23, would I ever get a chance to write? And I wondered, what if I was here for 15 or 20 years and never wrote or sold anything? How much would that suck?
And that's where the main character of Richard Kaine comes from. A good guy, but a bit of a failure, mid-thirties with a cubicle drone job and few prospects for advancement -- who one day writes something good. Really good. And he sells it. And it becomes huge -- Harry Potter for adults kinda huge. And that gets back to the scary part of the story... where did Richard's ideas come from? Heh-heh-heh...
AG: Is any of this drawn from your own experiences in publishing? Not the horror elements, but the people one encounters in publishing?
FN: If The Blackburne Covenant had been done as the novel I originally conceived it as, there would have been much more of that, getting into the drudgery of day to day work, the frustrations, etc. For the comic book or screenplay medium, we hit the ground running and start with the book already becoming a success.
AG: I know that you've had it in mind to do The Blackburne Covenant for quite some time; so why is now the right time for it?
FN: Well, the time was perfect for some new directions. I've been pigeonholed -- and I guess I pigeonholed myself -- as a superhero writer for so long, but almost all the ideas I have in half-form or fully fleshed out in my computer have nothing to do with spandex. I've written Turok and Two-Gun Kid, edited Barbie and Classics Illustrated Study Guides, but so much of my work had been in one genre -- dominated by X-cesses of the past -- that most of those things have been overlooked. Recently, I'd been working on prose and screenplay material which was not superhero in nature, and then working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Fabian has been co-writing the monthly along with Scott Lobdell for several months --AG) gave me the itch to do more of that kind of work in comics. Scott Allie and Dark Horse were receptive to my pitches, and voila!
AG: What is it about the project that kept you interested for so long?
FN: Well, you sit with a character in your brain for so long and one of two things happens: you get bored by him/her or you really want to tell their story. Obviously, with Richard Kaine and The Blackburne Covenant, it was the latter. Doesn't hurt that no one else -- to the best of my knowledge -- has come up with a similar enough idea in the 20 years since I first thought of it!
AG: Who's the artist on the book? How did you come to work with him?
FN: Stefano Raffaele is the artist. Scott recommended him based on some work they'd done together and I saw his art on his web site and was very impressed. I'd worked with Stefano once before, years ago, I forget on what -- something with an "X" in it probably, but that was back when everyone was posing, so it wasn't his real work! The stuff he's doing now is gorgeous. Crisp, clear storytelling, great mood, characterization, pacing, lighting -- the works. To me, it looks like a film on paper.
The story is very human-based -- albeit good-looking humans -- and Stefano does an excellent job of detailing that.
AG: Knowing that this is a completely made-up world you've created, how do you do research for it? Or do you just forego research and make up everything as you go along?
FN: Well, most of the story is set in Manhattan. It takes place in the very real world -- too real, as the story would have it, because the question being asked of the characters is, "What if this all could have been different?" What if the world we live in today could have been -- should have been -- something... better?
AG: Are there more ideas you've had percolating in the back of your mind that we may get to see before too long?
FN: I certainly hope so. I've enjoyed working with Scott and Dark Horse for the last year and they're a publishing company that has always been willing to do a wide variety of materials. Heck, maybe I can even pitch Dark Horse a superhero comic!
AG: I know you're currently working on the Buffy monthly with Scott Lobdell. How do you compare writing solo to being part of a writing team?
FN: Well, the co-writing on Buffy between Scott L and I hasn't really been a case of sharing words on a per page basis. I've kind of been called in to flesh out his rough ideas or put a cherry on top of his finished sundae. I've plotted and scripted separate pages of issues he's scripting in total, stuff like that. There are some great advantages to working in a team situation, but you need good, open communication and an editor willing to become the equivalent of a U.N. negotiator! Writing solo is much more personal, but not necessarily more or less rewarding. I try to see all sides of the job, since I've been an editor, an advertising manager, and a freelancer, I think I can empathize with the requirements of the various aspects of publishing.
AG: Do you have any other upcoming writing projects you'd like to mention?
FN: Did we mention that I'll be taking over Buffy with #60? "A Stake To The Heart" is our last pre-Season One story arc and it deals with the divorce of Buffy's parents and her first days in Sunnydale! And the bad guys in it -- called The Malignancies -- will hopefully make Joss Whedon's demons from "Hush" look like a buncha grinning daffodils!
Blackburne Covenant #1, the first in a four-issue series, written by Fabian Nicieza and drawn by Stefano Raffaele, will be in comics shops April 2.