In only 1 Week Alabaster: Wolves #1 hits shelves at your local comic shop and the Dark Horse digital store. We really think Alabaster is a special comic, an incredible vision brought together by Caitlín R. Kiernan & Steve Lieber with covers by Greg Ruth and a special variant by Michael Avon Oeming. If you're a fan of Horror, Dark Fantasy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bad Ass female characters then don't miss this top-notch new series.
Dark Horse Comics: What are you most looking forward to in bringing Dancy Flammarion to the comics world?
Caitlín R. Kiernan: The opportunity to take a world and a character whose stories have, essentially, always existed solely in the domain of words, and see them translated into images. I’m an extremely visual writer. I have to be able to see a thing, at least in my mind’s eye, before I can write it. Readers and critics have often remarked upon the very visual element in my writing, which I suppose means that what I need to write, that needing to “see,” shows through. I make pictures with words. Now, here, with a comic version of Dancy Flammarion, I can tell new stories about a character I’ve been writing for years, and I can see them become images, basically reversing the usual process. Or, no, I suppose I mean bringing it full circle. I “see” a story, and I write dialogue and description for Steve Lieber, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Greg Ruth, and then they allow me – and all our readers – to literally see that story. And I do love that. I do.
DHC: What has been the biggest challenge in translating her story to the comic medium?
CRK: In my fiction, I use a lot of internal monologue – and, more recently, first-person narrative – to allow readers to have direct, immediate access to the minds of my characters. How does Dancy feel? Well, just listen to what she’s thinking. In comics, of course, I’m having to work with a new economy of words. Where I might have used a hundred words to convey a thought or an expression, a frame of mind, I must use only ten or fifteen, maybe less, and then allow Steve to get that across to readers. To show what she’s feeling. Sometimes, I get no words at all. I describe to Steve an expression, a mood, and he conveys it with an image. This truly is a challenge. Our editor, Rachel Edidin, frequently reminds me to trust Steve. When you've been a prose author for twenty years – though I did spend many years working for DC – trusting someone else, that's a tall order.
DHC: What do you see as the most unique element that Alabaster brings to comics?
CRK: I suppose that she existed first as a prose character. Dancy makes her first appearance in my 1998 novel Threshold. But then I wanted to keep writing short stories about her, so I sort of ignored what went on in Threshold and created a new worldline for Dancy, rebooting her, back in June and July of 2001. Then I proceeded to write six short stories about her, which were collected in a book, Alabaster, in 2006. I thought I was finished with her then, until I was approached about working with Dark Horse, and suddenly Dancy seemed like an obvious character to adapt to the medium of comics. She was, in my stories, a recurring character. Her tales were episodic, yet also cumulative, much like those of a comic book character. Ted Naifeh had illustrated Alabaster, the collection, so I had this clearer image of her in my mind (though Steve and I used that as a starting point, and created a somewhat different Dancy from Ted's interpretation). Now, I'm sure many other characters have existed first in prose, then in comics. Tarzan, for example. Or first in film, then in comics. Buffy, for example. But this is the nearest I can come to saying "This makes Dancy unique." No, wait. What makes her unique is that she is Dancy Flammarion, and no one has ever done a Dancy Flammarion comic. She's never before existed in this medium, and that's what makes her unique: she's the only her in comics.
DHC: You are working with amazing artists on Alabaster including, Greg Ruth, Steve Lieber and Michael Avon Oeming. What's surprised you most about seeing them bring your world to life?
CRK: Just that they're doing such a wonderful job of it. Sometimes, it's as if they're doing more than reading the script. Sometimes, I feel as if they're cracking open my skull and looking directly inside. And, by the way, Rachelle Rosenberg, our colorist, is a huge part of this process, and a huge part of why it works. Greg gives us this fabulous overture, and then Steve builds a fabulous framework, and then Rachelle fills it in, and in so doing, she's collaborating closely with Steve, adding much more mood and sense of place. So, what surprises me the most is how they're getting it so right. I wouldn't have thought anyone could do that. But there's this great rapport between us. For example – and this is a very simple example – right at the start, Steve asked, if you were casting Alabaster: Wolves as a film, who would play Dancy? I knew straightaway, and I told him Elle Fanning. So, in that way, he had a foundation on which to build the character.
DHC: What had to change in your writing process to accommodate writing a comic?
CRK: I've covered a good bit of that here already. Primarily, that whole thing with the economy of language. Also, though, of course, format. Having to say, here's what the reader is seeing. Steve, show them this. Then adding in dialogue or a caption. Writing a script, instead of writing prose. That's pretty much like the difference between night and day. Also, collaboration. I don't collaborate in prose. Well, virtually never. I've published seven novels, several novellas, and over two hundred short stories, and maybe five of the short stories are collaborations with other authors. That's it. I'd rather be off on my own, most times. So, working with others to make art, that's another big difference, and sometimes it's a very challenging one, because I admit I can be hard to work with. Often, I do not play well with others. My writing is a solitary endeavor, while writing comics demands I work with a team. I have often said, "There is no 'I' in team," when talking about collaboration. But, in certain circumstances, such as those with this comic, there has to be a team and I have to bend and adapt, and it's very rewarding. And editing, that's another big difference. I don't write in drafts. What comes out the first time, other than fixing typos, misspellings, that's what gets printed, and this is true of my novels and stories. But in comics, there's a lot of editing, of the text, of the way the text works with the images, of what is and is not successful. There's a sort of give-and-take that's fairly alien to me.
DHC: If you had a superpower what would it be?
CRK: This is hard to answer. Almost impossible, because I look at superpowers – which Dancy essentially lacks, by the way – and I can't help but see all the potential drawbacks. Same with making wishes. Having to consider all the consequences down the road. But, I'm going to say I'd want to be able to breathe underwater. To have gills that only open when I'm in water. For that matter, the ability to shape-shift. I'd be okay with that. The drawbacks seem fairly minimal.
* Discover how Greg Ruth created the Cover of Alabaster: Wolves #1
Read an Extended Preview of Alabaster: Wolves #1 Here!
Find out more about Alabaster: Wolves here!
Find out more about Dancy Flammarion!