Jim Butcher, the best-selling author of the Dresden Files series of novels, told SCI FI Wire that he's adapted his franchise, about wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden, into a graphic novel, The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle.
The author said he was using the new medium to tell a prequel story to his series of books, the next of which, Turncoat, is due in April 2009.
Butcher talked to SCI FI Wire about the graphic novel in this exclusive interview.
So this graphic novel is a prequel to The Dresden Files series of novels. What backstory does it cover?
Butcher: The idea for this story was inspired by one of the scripts from the pilot from the show that was on SCI FI [Channel]. So it's one of those cross-pollination things, I guess. In the original pilot script, at one point, Murphy's talking to Harry, and Harry doesn't want to help her, and Murphy's like, "OK, listen. I've got to admit you've helped us before. You know there was the Calumet Heights kidnapping, that mess at the zoo." And I said, that mess at the zoo--that could really work as a story. The original title of the story was "That Mess at the Zoo." And then I started trying to figure out what the mess at the zoo would be.
[So] there's been a murder at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the only suspect is a gorilla who couldn't possibly have done it, but there's pressure from the city to hurry up and get the case closed. And Murphy's like, "Well, you know, I don't really particularly think we're going to accomplish anything by just killing a gorilla, because whatever did it is still going to be out there." So she has to get Dresden to come help. And Dresden gets on the trail, and he sort of winds up hooking up with one of the zoo staff and gets involved in all kinds of trouble and danger and explosions and so on. That part is just kind of standard Dresden Files stuff.
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How did the idea to do a comic book of The Dresden Files come about?
Butcher: Well, the Dabels [of Dabel Brothers Productions] approached me and said, "Hey, we want to do a comic book." And I said, "That would be, like, really cool."
And they said, "OK." And that's the simple way of how it went.
They asked me to write, ... or, initially, they had asked me to write a 22-page introduction issue that was just sort of a "here's who Harry Dresden is" introduction that then they would start turning the novels into graphic novels. ... I said, "OK, sure I can do that." We went from one 22-page issue to a 32-page issue, and then they thought, "Well, you know, to do this kind of story, you'd almost need two issues," and I'm like, "OK, well, I can probably do this and that with it." And they said, "OK, we'd better to go to four 32-page issues." And that's kind of what it wound up being. So I went from writing my first 22-page comic book to writing a 132 pages in a four-issue series. That was interesting, learning how to write comics, because it's not at all like writing books.
How is it different? How did your thought process work when you were writing the comic book as opposed to writing a novel?
Butcher: In a novel, a lot of what you write [is] about active things. ... In a comic book, you can't really see a moving action; that's not part of what's going on. I mean, you can do little frozen instant moments, but it's hard to have something poke its head around the corner and go "Boo!" and be scary in a comic book, because it's just not the way it works.
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Also, another really huge [obstacle] was that adjusting my mind to thinking, "I've got to be able to show reaction instead of action," which is kind of what comic books are about. And then the other big thing was working with somebody new, or working with somebody else, rather. When I write a book, I can do the whole thing, and I know exactly how I can make things work. I work with words; it's sort of my job, and so I know what I'm going to get. But when you work with somebody else, maybe this guy doesn't know that Harry Dresden is not supposed to have a pug nose and extra muscles. ... You've got this whole other mind out there that they don't know everything I'm thinking, so I have to look at their stuff and go, "Oh, oh wait, you can't do this; you have to do it like this," and to make corrections. ... So that was a unique kind of experience with actually getting in and doing creative process with a second person being involved in it.
What was that collaborative process like with the artist, Ardian Syaf? Did you two click right away together or was there a lot of back and forth?
Butcher: That was basically it. I would send an outline. I would also send photo references. ... There were people who were close to what I wanted. In my head, for example, Murphy looks somewhere between Scully [from The X-Files] and Gabrielle from Xena. And so when he wanted pictures of Murphy I said, "Oh, yeah, there is somebody who looks close; here get halfway between these two," and I sent him some photos. And then I was able to include several different actors who are kind of vaguely close to Dresden. Dresden started off as kind of this all-American baseball player-looking guy, and I'm like, "No, no, Dresden's not like that. His basis is not the stereotypical quarterback hero. His basis is the stereotypical computer nerd." And then we go from there. So I had to send him these pictures of nerd heroes. It's like, OK, here's pictures of Mulder, here's pictures of Bruce [Campbell] from Army of Darkness and several other actors who are vaguely close to what I want it to be. And so we had to go back and forth several times. And I said, "OK! Now this is perfect," or, "This is good" or "That's great," or "We can go with that, sure." Or if it was something that hadn't really been particularly clear, you know, somebody who hadn't been terribly clear in my head, it'd be like, "Yeah, that's fine. ... OK, that's what that person looks like. Cool, we'll go with that."
-John Joseph Adams
