First Comics News: What have you discovered about yourself through your writing?
Matt Wagner: It’s a continual process; you know you are writing about looking out at the world and yourself in it. Depending on the project, one is more dominant than the other. At the same time, you’re also trying to tell a good tale. It’s quite the juggling act.
1st: How do you change or create Dracula’s origin in “Dracula – Book One: The Impaler”?
Matt: In the original Dracula novel, there is no origin. Our goal with this series of graphic novels is to stick entirely biblically close to what Stoker wrote while not doing an adaptation of the novel itself because there have been tons of those in film, comics, and even on stage. They all claim to be the most accurate to the book, but, of course, none of them are. There are a whole lot of tantalizing hints about Dracula throughout the book. One of the conundrums of the book is that Dracula is such a fascinating character; he is not on stage all that much but is more of a sinister presence in the shadows. After the initial scenes at the castle in Transylvania, once he gets to London, we hardly see him at all. The novel is written in an epistolary style, in the form of letters, journals, newspaper articles, and such. So, we have many different voices in the novel, and the one voice that is missing is Dracula himself. With this series of novels, we endeavored to keep him on stage at the forefront and to have it told in his voice version of his own story. There are two references in the original novel that Van Helsing mentions about the fact that Dracula, when alive, attends something called the Scholomance. The Scholomance is an actual Eastern European legend about a seminary for the dark arts that Satan himself hosts way up in the mountains. Every seven years, he takes on ten scholars to learn to be dark wizards, and he keeps one of them as his Fee. In the novel, we don’t see many other vampires; they’re all women, and none seem to have the range of power he does. He is so obviously more powerful than they are. They can turn into mist to transubstantiate through small spaces and appear in places, but none of them seem to be able to control animals, control the weather, or trans morph into animals. Our approach was that he learned all those powers as a necromancer at the Scholomance. It always shocked me that there are these tantalizing references to the source of his origin, and nobody seems to do anything with it. So we did; we made up a whole new origin for him. We also figured we needed some special way for him to become a vampire because when you’re talking about vampires, Dracula is the OG vampire- not the first one in literature or legend, but the most famous vampire of all time. I would even maintain he is the most famous literary character of all time. So, I knew we needed some special way for him to transform into a vampire. He couldn’t just get bitten by another vampire; that’s just ordinary. He needed a very special way to transform. We had that happen in the first book.
1st: Besides Dracula will we be seeing the usual people in “Dracula – Book One: The Impaler” such as Mina, Lucy, Harker, and Van Helsing?
Matt: Very sparingly, we won’t see them in Book One or Book Two. Book Two is called The Brides. I should probably start by saying that we launched these as Kickstarter campaigns, and the Kickstarter campaign is the only place to get the hardcover edition. We have several different hardcover editions: a cover by Kelley, a cover by me, and then a limited signed and numbered edition. But then Dark Horse Comics is releasing trade paperback editions of each of these after the backers for the Kickstarter receive their copies.
Book Two is called The Brides, and of course, there is a very famous scene at the beginning of the novel where they are at the castle, and these three vampiric women appear and prepare to prey on Jonathan Harker. Dracula drives them off and says, “He’s mine; you’re not allowed to touch him yet; you’ll have him one day.” They make such an indelible impression, and they’re only on stage for a couple of pages of the novel. Yet they make it into almost every film adaptation, so we figured we needed to explain their origins as well. Book Two gives us the background of all three of these women, and they’re three completely different characters. They come to be part of his harem in three different ways and for three different reasons. So that was a lot of fun. The second book covers a longer period. The first book covers about seven years, while the second book covers several centuries, taking us up to the point at the beginning of the novel itself when he first makes his decision to leave Transylvania and go to England, London.
1st: How will “Dracula – Book Two: The Brides” continue the story?
Matt: It continues the story because you see him over the scope of centuries; it is not only the tale of the brides. We get to see what happens to him over those many years. He went to the Scholomance to achieve power, and what he ended up getting was power beyond his imagination as this vampire. However, vampires also have severe limitations on their powers, so it’s kind of a blessing and a curse at the same time. You see how he deals with being a vampire, and you observe his frustrations in trying to achieve worldly power. It does not quite go the way he expected. It is his story; it is not just the bride’s story in Book Two.
1st: How many books are in the Dracula series and any chance of other series featuring monsters?
Matt: At this point, we have it planned out for four. But we are completely open to seeing if inspiration strikes. The first two books were very successful on Kickstarter, so if they continue to be successful, we might end up doing more. However, at this moment, it is planned for four books.
I do not know, perhaps. Of course, I am collaborating with one of the all-time great horror comic book artists, Kelley Jones, and that is his milieu. I don’t know; we still have many years ahead before we wrap this up. Let’s see, perhaps after that.
1st: Were you a fan of Dracula before writing this series?
Matt: Absolutely a big fan of Dracula. Many years ago, in his book “Danse Macabre,” Stephen King listed his analysis of horror literature. He breaks all horror literature down into three art types, with a fourth kind as a sub-art type, and that’s Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and Jekyll and Hyde-however you want to call it. The pestilence that consumes, the thing with no name, and the raging beast within. He also includes ghosts, which can kind of fit in all around those, maybe even be one of those themselves. Of those three, I like Dracula the best; I love vampire fiction of all kinds. I’m nuts about the romanticized stuff; I couldn’t stomach “Twilight,” and after the first couple of Anne Rice’s, I got tired of her approach to it, too. I still read vampire fiction a lot; I loved “Dark Shadows” when I was a kid. I’m a big fan of ” The Night Stalker.” One of my favorite films of all time is “Let the Right One In,” which is just a wonderful, wonderful vampire tale. So, yeah, I have always been into vampires. Vampires show up in my book “Grendel” quite a bit, too. Kelley and I have known each other for decades, being friends and we always kind of threatened to work together someday on some big project. We knew that if we were going to do this, we wanted it to be something significant, not just a little one-off of some kind. A couple of years ago, he reached out to me, saying we have to work together someday . I called him and said, “Hey man, are you serious about this? Because I think I have an idea for us now.” I had been stewing on this Dracula idea for a while. You know the whole thing about how to approach Dracula; it’s been done so many times. When I finally struck on the idea of expanding on the hints and small bits of information in the book as opposed to adapting the book itself, all of a sudden it opened up a ton of story ideas for me. I said to Kelley, “Here is what I have in mind.” He was shocked because he thought I would say Batman or Grendel, and when I told him Dracula and then outlined what I had in mind, he was like, “I’m in.” Even though I told him this was going to be a commitment. We’re talking about at least five years, maybe a little bit more. It was the right time for him and me. So it all worked out.
1st: How awesome is it to have Kelley Jones illustrating your story?
Matt: It’s incredibly awesome; he’s so damn good. As I’m writing, I’m constantly telling myself I’m writing it to him, for him. Aiming at his strengths, I’ll finish scenes and think, “Oh God, Kelley is going to nail this, and it’s going to be so awesome .” Then it comes back, and it’s better than I could have imagined. It’s just seamless. He claims this is his favorite thing he has ever worked on. It just feels very natural for both of us.
1st: In “Grendel: Devil’s Crucible – Defiance” how would you describe Grendel Prime’s personality?
Matt: Grendel Prime is an interesting character in that he has a distinct personality, and people seem to care about him, even though we never see his face. He is constantly behind the Grendel mask. Of course, he is a cyborg; there is not much of him left that is human. He is a very driven, purposeful, and capable warrior, and yet the sad part is that he often fails-most often at what he attempts. The story preceding this, “Devil’s Odyssey,” involved a mission that failed. Aside from the events of “Warchild,” where he was tasked with protecting the heir to the throne, he succeeded in getting him to the throne. The guy turned out to be a terrible leader. Prime is a study of ability versus tragedy.
1st: Who are Hari Smythe and Ptolemy Chambers?
Matt: There is part of the Grendel resistance. At this point, he returns from outer space, and Grendel who used to rule the world is all of a sudden exiled and forbidden. The vampires have reemerged from the shadows and taken over as a group called the Necro-lords. Ptolemy and Hari are two members of the resistance that I’m having a lot of fun writing. Ptolemy, in particular, because my goal with her is to have her say “fuck” as many times as possible. She swears like a drunken sailor. Hari is very purposeful and likable, but at the same time, he is willing to go to lengths that are maybe beyond what he should.
1st: How would you describe the vampire hierarchy in “Grendel: Devil’s Crucible – Defiance”?
Matt: So the vampires live in these giant towers. You know the world is kind of decimated, and there is now a ban on solar technology, with not much electricity available to people. The few people that are left have seen their population decimated, and the vampires reside in these giant hive-like structures called Casthedrales, which are a combination of a cathedral and a casino. They open these enclaves up to humans. The humans can come and live in luxury, never suffering and never starving, but they must be available as food for the vampires. So it is a real sell-your-soul-for-thirty-pieces-of-silver deal. There are the Necro-lords, the leaders. Then there are plenty of everyday vampires as well that help the Casthedrales function. There are even rogue vampires outside the Casthedrales-people who accidentally got turned and are roaming the countryside, preying on humans.
1st: What do you have planned next in your career?
Matt: Aside from two more Dracula novels, I just turned over the script to Kelley just before New Year’s. He is wrapping up the art for Book Two right now, but Devil’s Crucible is divided into what was originally going to be a three or four-issue series. So, it’s a twelve-issue story arc overall. A DarkHorse one to release four issues per year, then the trade collection, then the next four issues, the trade collection the following year, and the year after that I reached the end of that and realized I didn’t have enough space to wrap this up. I need another four issues. Luckily, they said yes, and I’m doing another four issues, and there will be a fourth part of Devil’s Crucible down the line a little bit. Both of those things are keeping me pretty busy.
1st: What do you think of cats’ faspets?
Matt: I love cats as pets. I’ve had them for years. We have two right now. My son has one as well, so we have three cats in the house. We recently upgraded the litter because managing three cats can be quite a task, and we recently got a litter robot a year or so ago. It’s a device where cats get in and poop, and after they’re done, the device rotates and strains the litter, separating the poop and pee clumps from the clean litter. It’s a real game-changer
1st: Would you like to be a vampire, why or why not?
Matt: No way! I like to eat real food too much. However, I will say that in Book Two, we explore Dracula’s drinking of blood as he discusses how it’s superior to any experience he ever had. Specifically, the approach since Anne Rice’s novels has been that vampires tend to be ambisexual. However, there is just no evidence of that in the Stoker novel; he preys only on women. You must assume he would prey on a man if he had to, but his choice is women. I explain why that is in Book Two, and specifically, the drinking of blood is more transcendent than any experience he has ever had when he was alive.
1st: What words of wisdom do you have for your many fans?
Matt: If you want to be a comic book creator, it just takes doing it every day. The options for publishing now are far more diverse than when I started. I began in the early independent days, which were more varied than the generations before when you had to work for one of the big publishers. Like any craft and any skill, it takes constant practice-just doing it. When young wannabes come to see me at a con, I tell them they have to draw every day, not just when they feel like it. I use the analogy that if you were a musician, you’d understand you needed to practice your violin every day If you were an athlete, you’d understand you need to train every day. It’s the same with art; it can’t just be on a whim; you have to do it every single day. As far as being a writer goes, you can’t be a writer without being a reader. You have to read. I would advise not just reading comics but all sorts of material . Comics are a very particular medium in that they’re not prose, and they’re not cinema. They bear similarities to both of those forms. The thing about both prose and cinema is that they are venues for storytelling. So, you need to absorb stories and understand how stories work. In their best forms, they have a resonance beyond the immediacy of the action taking place. They appeal to our human nature helping us gain insights into who we are individually and societally, as well as our place in the cosmos, hopefully.
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