Dark Horse Comics – one of our favorite publishers – is currently going through a promotion called “Dark Horse Does Vampires Right.” This isn’t just lip service in promotion form either. Between the Whedonverse books, “The Strain,” “Baltimore” and many others, Dark Horse is killing it with original takes on one of the most overexposed story types out there these days.
To help spread some love to this promotion, I’m going to have a couple chats between me and Dark Horse vampire creators over the next couple days, starting with “House of Night” writer Kent Dalian. Dalian, the man handpicked to write the screenplay for P.C. and Kristin Cast’s vampire smash, also brought the series to life in a new way with his comic book adaptation, featuring art from top names like Joelle Jones, Karl Kerschl and Eric Canete. You can check out that interview below, in which we chat about vampire fiction, his favorite examples of it, the “House of Night” experience, and more. Thanks to Kent for chatting with me!
Before we get into House of Night, I wanted to touch on vampires as a whole. Obviously, with things like Twilight and True Blood taking over the zeitgeist, vampires are at a higher point than perhaps ever. In your mind, how is the world of vampire fiction doing?
Kent Dalian: Well, I think the world of vampire fiction is obviously on fire. I think there will always be an insatiable romance between us mortals and the powerful, sexy, near-immortal vampire. And for writers, the possibilities for vampire stories are endless.
They can be the villainous hero or the misunderstood monster. They can be ancient children or “newborn” senior citizens. Their stories can be set in the past, present or future with ease.
But the most recent coupe for vampires in fiction is finding a younger audience than the previous “R” rated material. (Unless you count “The Count” from Sesame Street. This is all his fault)
For you both as a writer and as a reader, what do you look at as some of the best in the lengthy history in vampire fiction?
KD: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is the LotR of vampire myth. And rightly so. It’s brilliant. “Salem’s Lot” is a favorite of mine. I was mesmerized by “Interview with a Vampire” and “The Vampire Lestat”, but the series lost me after that when Lestat started whining about how bored he was. Fine, immortality can be tedious. I’ll give you a chapter or two to cry about it, not a whole book. And I am a big fan of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Harris took the genre and created a very unique and detailed world around modern vampires. And “Let the Right One In” was just genius. So original and creative.
I loved the movies “Fright Night” and “Lost Boys” when I was a teenager. They did a great job of combining horror with humor. Although I haven’t seen them in a while because I’m afraid I’ll be too judgmental now. I’ve learned to leave happy memories alone.
What do you feel the House of Night series, either in prose or comic form, adds to the world of vampire fiction?
KD: The House of Night series adds ancient mythology to the vampire world. In P.C.’s world, vampires are a matriarchal society governed by the Goddess of Night, Nyx. The entire House of Night structure is built on ancient mythology — Native American; Celtic/Gaelic; Greek. P.C. has even restructured the myths (which is her specialty) so that many of the gods and goddesses were the original vampires. It’s a very big and bold undertaking and makes the world very rich and expansive. And also a helluva lotta fun.
How did you land the gig writing the adaptation of House of Night?
KD: I had originally been hired to write the screenplay adaptation of “Marked”, the first book in the HoN series. During that period, I spent a lot of phone time with P.C., picking her brain and making sure I was being as faithful as possible to her book . We became fast friends. When she told me that Dark Horse wanted to do a House of Night mini-series, I volunteered myself. I was always a huge fan of comics but had no idea how to technically write them. So, I asked her to let me take a crack at it and she something to the effect of “Knock yourself out, just don’t suck”. I researched my ass off and wrote a whole bunch of pages. She liked them and I was hired. I couldn’t believe I was going to be writing comics. How fucking cool!
Continued belowWhen you were going through the initial process of putting the first mini-series together, how closely did you work with PC?
KD: I worked very closely with P.C. We brainstormed together until we had outlines that she was happy with. I was in Ireland at the time and she was traveling all over the globe, as she does. So it was a lot of phone, Skype and email. She was also busy as hell with the HoN novels, so she gave me a pretty long leash and trusted me to not mess up her stories. Essentially, she let me run free in her sandbox and I only had to follow a few simple rules.
It’s always difficult to bring a beloved world to life like this one is, but you had a bevy of talented artistic partners in people like Joelle Jones, Karl Kerschl and Eric Canete, to name a few. How much input did you put into the artists chosen, and how thrilling was it to work with such a talented crew?
KD: The choice of artists was ultimately P.C.’s. Our editors would send us samples of several artists’ work that they felt would best represent the HoN world. Then, P.C. and I would both discuss which one we were most excited about for each issue and we agreed 100% of the time. Literally. So that was probably the easiest part of the process. Especially because the artists they offered us were all incredible talents. To be able to work with the likes of Jones, Kerschl and Canete, it upped the stakes immensely. The bar was set pretty high, so I really wanted to give them challenging, or at least interesting, scripts to work off of. (And I hope I did).
How do you feel like your work in adapting the series into comic form went through the first mini, both from a personal assessment standpoint and in terms of overall reception?
KD: This is a good question. Thanks for making me think too hard. I’m proud of the work I did in my first stint as a comics writer. However, I have to give most of the credit to my editors — Sierra Hahn and Jim Gibbons. They went way above and beyond to show me the ropes and they were so unbelievably kind and encouraging the whole way. I’m not used to that. I came out of the Hollywood survivor school where it’s every-man-for-himself. Most of the notes you get on screenplays go like this — “more explosions and car chases”. And that’s if you’re writing a dark love story or a baseball movie. Can’t imagine the producer’s line on “Transformers”.
But seriously, Sierra and Jim were like best-friend-cheerleaders. Even when I was pushing their patience-threshold with my newbiness. I will forever love them and they get free drinks at my funeral. So, it was a baptism by fire and I loved every minute of it because I had caring, nurturing people behind me. That’s rare.
As far as the reception — I was very pleasantly surprised. Not that I expected it to be a flop, but I’m always ready for negative criticism. I believe that if I write something that EVERYBODY likes, then I’ve written something mediocre. There was criticism of the series, but most of it was favorable. That helped me breathe a sigh of relief. So did the negative stuff.
From the sound of it, the whole series will be eventually adapted into comic form. Is that still the case, and, if so, will you be the one guiding the ship, so to speak?
KD: Actually, I don’t think the whole series will be adapted. Dark Horse doesn’t work that way. They prefer to take an established novel or franchise and tell the “untold stories” or at least put a different spin on the existing ones. That’s what makes them unique. And it’s certainly more creative and challenging for a writer rather than just straight adapting, format to format. That’s monkey work.
We have many ideas for upcoming House of Night stories that don’t adapt the books word for word. So far, I will be doing many of these, but P.C. will be guiding the ship. It’ll be the stories that she wants to tell that she didn’t get to squeeze into the novels.
Continued belowWhat else do you have coming down the path, both in the world of comics and beyond?
KD: Very nice of you to ask. I’m getting my hair cut next Thursday and my Alaskan Malamute is getting his balls removed the day after.
In the world of comics, we have another House of Night series starting very soon and several more loaded in the chamber. And I have my own vampire/werewolf series called “Slaughterhouse Alley” that I’m hoping to develop with Dark Horse. It’s very dark, twisted and humorous and will kick ass. In my humble opinion.
On the screenplay front, my latest script, “The Hand of Bob” is being made by Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura. It’s very dark, twisted and humorous and will kick ass. In my humble opinion.
