True Blood Takes A Bite Out of Comics

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When you’re a TV show like True Blood with millions of thirsty fans, you can bet they want to know more about the expanded universe. While not every moment of Bill and Sookie’s romance can be caught on tape, IDW has released a licensed True Blood comic book series to keep you updated on the secret parts of your favorite character’s lives. Though the TV audience might not all be avid comic book readers, the writers and artists are hoping to convert a few newbies to the world of the graphic novel through True Blood, which the writers believe is a “gateway for new comic book readers.”

Writers Mariah Huehner and David Tischman dished about the comic book at the HBO Shop, where you can purchase the True Blood comic as well as any other True Blood gear,  and what it’s like having a career writing fan fiction all day long.

Michelle Castillo: Did you read the books or watch the show first?

Mariah Huehner: We watch the show because the way the license works it’s based on the show’s universe. Although the show’s universe is based on the books, we didn’t wanted to come up with a story of doing something that was too similar to the books and running the fowl of doing that kind of stuff.  I think Charlaine Harris does a great job. My mother in law is a huge fan of the books, but we didn’t want to cross wires.

MC: Were you fans of the show before?

MH: Yeah!

David Tischman: One of the great things about True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse novels is that you can be a fan of one, you can be a fan of the other or you can be a fan of both.

MH: Because you get different things from each one.

DT: And, now with the comics, it’s just another layer of Sookie goodness.

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MC: It seems like something that would naturally flow into a comic book. Do you have any intention to do side stories with the comic book?

MH: Yeah. That’s actually what this first story line actually is, to be able to tell back-stories to some of the characters, certain experiences in their lives that have worked along a certain thematic structure. We applied it with (True Blood) Alan Ball, which is really great so we could get what they wanted to do with the characters that they weren’t going to be able to do in the show, so we could actually take the time and tell those stories. So the first one and each subsequent story is going to be like that too – not back-story, but other stories they aren’t able to do on the show so they can, there’s more world expansion and stuff with the comics.

DT: In this first story line we got the chance to talk to Alan Ball about this stuff. The plot is that all the characters are stuck inside of Merlotte over the course of a night and to appease this monster that is in there that is holding them hostage they each have to tell their most shameful secrets. In comic books, it’s not an origin story per say, but it really is the moment of great emotional distress, certainly a defining moment in their lives, but we’ve never really been exposed to that either in the books or on the TV show. So if you are a fan of either one, you are getting sort of new information on the characters. By working with Alan and HBO, who has been great through all of this, the stories that we’re telling the comics are cannon with the TV True Blood universe.

MC: How closely did you work with Alan?

MH: Very. We kind of had a mini writers room. We had Alan and his two head staff writers at the time Elisabeth (R. Finch) and Kate (Barnow), and we sat down with them and there was also one or two other people. We went through the entire plot in that one sitting where we broke down each character, what story they’re going to tell, what moment it was they needed to find and what was going to happen and the overall sort of plot. We kind of figured out where it all fit in the overall series. As most people know the seasons start of up right after each other, this kind of fits in in-between where you can fit it because it’s basically just one night. Yeah, we worked really closely with them, they were great.

MC: Was there something Alan Ball nixed because of something that came up this season?

DT: I think there were some revelations about the origins of Bill and Sookie’s relationship that came out in the final episodes of this season that I think  in our original proposal we had touch on a bit, and Alan walked us through it, and we were able to skirt around it. Both were able to still be really powerful. They revealed what Sookie is this season and that opens up a whole lot of stuff that could be cool to explore.

MH: We kind of just stuck on one story line, and it just hit and gelled. Usually you have to go through a bunch of them, but that hit pretty quickly. But that’s true, it was just like little things that as a storyteller, you go, “I think they’re going to go there, maybe we can hint at this. And, it’s like, “Oh no, maybe we should pull back.” The Bill-Sookie stuff was definitely one of those.

MC: The finale of the last season, Sookie disappeared. How did you deal with that in the comic book?

MH: Since our story takes place before that we didn’t have to worry because that’s kind of a big moment like Bill disappearing. We take place before those events so we don’t mess up anything that’s been done. But that’s one of the reasons that it’s great to have Alan involved because he could tell us, yes this can work or no this can’t work because this is going to happen without giving away too much of their story. It was easy for us to coordinate everything, which is nice.

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MC: Is he ever going to reference anything in the comic books on the show?

MH: I don’t know.

DT: We hope!

MH: He did this great piece talking about the comic books and what’s going on with them. He was honestly, sounds like a thing to say, he was so great and so gracious. I think he had such a fun time with it. I think he just enjoyed the process because it’s different than TV. They were all just really cool about it. I think, I hope, it would be fun if they did. But, we’ll definitely reference things in the comic.

MC: What was your favorite character storyline?

MH: I’m really torn. One of the nice things we got to do, because in comic books you can chance up the art style so all of the different stories have a different style focusing on each character so that the Sookie story has a different art style, and it’s from the perspective of her as a child. It has a different quality than the other story. It’s really hard to pick. I think that the Lafayette story is really my favorite.

DT: An interesting thing abut the Lafayette story is going into this season we had all heard they were going to introduce Lafayette’s mother, and they did a lot of stuff with that this season. I really think that by working with Alan, our story, really dovetails beautifully with what’s on screen.

MH: His mom is in the story, and it also deals with his homosexuality. To me, without giving away the whole story, that was really important to me because it was something that we got to do in the comics because it’s something that is so important to the show of being able to deal with different sexualities with the vampires, and I didn’t want the comic to lose that quality. I wanted to make sure those were things that stayed true. If you’re going to do a Lafayette story, you need to have that acknowledged somewhere. It was nice to be able to tell a younger story about that because he’s one of my favorite characters. It was funny because we didn’t know that much about the mother going into it but they gave us information. It was nice what we thought was work really did work, and it fits nicely with what happened this season.

DT: Another thing was with working with Alan and focusing on sort of these emotionally core moments of the characters, as you get into season two and three and coming up season four, it really enables us to go back and distill what is unique about those characters. In Bill’s story, again without giving away specific details, it really goes to the humanity in Bill and the struggle that he has. I think, for instance, in Eric’s story his sort of on again off again relationship with humanity and how he feels about human beings and women specifically. Sookie’s story about her parents.

MH: The Sookie story especially. The first time I got to see it with the art – there was the main art style and then the one for each story. The Sookie one, it’s such a beautific, soft palate kind of story from her perspective as a little child and your emotions are heightened and she’s dealing with her abilities. It’s hard to write for a child. You don’t want to sound too grown up, but you don’t want to sound too immature because you want to get to where you need to go, and you get to see Gran in that story, which is nice to see her back because obviously that character got horribly murdered.

DT: It’s the only place you’re going to see her!

MC: Maybe that’s my headline: If you like Gran

DT: If you’re a Gran fan, this is the only place you’re going to see her.

MH: That was nice. We had a lot of freedom to work with a lot of characters that maybe are gone now, so that really helps.

[youtube id =”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBw2z_p1JfE”%5D

MC: Another freedom you have is you can get a lot more graphic than you can on a TV show even though HBO is pretty out there.

MH: They’ve done some great stuff.

DT: We’ve had some fun with the violence and the sex – still keeping it appropriate, but we had fun as well.

MH: It’s always fun to have their permission to do that because this is not a property where they worried about of really five-year olds pick it up. It’s something where we can be like the show. You can have the creative cursing and you can have creatures ripping people’s heads off. That’s fun to do, and especially with because – it’s such a worn out phrase – but the ability to do things without a budget. We could have a multi-armed monster that works on the world.

DT: There’s a T-shirt of the monster. His tentacles come out and his jaw kind of unhinges, and there’s teeth, and it’s great.

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MC: How does this compare to the previous projects you’ve worked on?

DT: I’ve done some other licensed stuff. Mariah and I are doing essentially season six of Angel, part of it.

MC: I’m actually a bigger Angel fan than Buffy.

DT: Some of the stuff we’re doing is really, really fun. It gets to the core of Angel.

MH: Brian Lynch started it. His story picks up with the last episode. We’re actually going to be doing the last arc because Dark Horse is getting that property real soon.

DT: I’m working on Angel now, and I’ve worked on Angel in the past. I’ve also done Star Trek, so all of those have been licensed properties. I’ve done vampires before too. This is really fun because it’s actually on the air right now, and there is an immediacy of the fan base. You’re talking to fans

MH: Who are really excited about a show that’s currently on.

DT: You can have that what happened last Sunday and how is that going to affect what you’re doing now conversation. So it’s been really exciting.

MH: What is great about seeing the show is being able to say, “Oh I wonder if this moment, which they couldn’t do more with, I wonder how we can work that into this kind of thing and take that character to that kind of thing.” That is one of the cool things about having something on right now that isn’t finished, being able to go, “Oh I wonder where they’re going to take that and do we have room to sort of do this thing and that thing?”

MC: A lot of True Blood watchers are not your typical comic book fans. How are you going to get them to read the comic books?

MH: Comics it’s a funny medium that way because there is a way to read them, and I think it’s daunting for a lot of people who don’t have exp erience with them. But, the cool thing about being currently on the air it’s already the familiarity with the characters on the show so we kind of wrote it with both types of fans in mind: those who already know the characters and are probably at least a little familiar with comics and people who aren’t. We kept it so that it’s not all over the place weird. It’s simple but dynamic stuff. We start it by introducing the characters a little bit, but not making it seem like, “Oh who are these guys?” You kind of have to make certain assumptions. We get into the characters so quickly. It was so important to get the voices I think to make it really sound like the show does. That’s what most people have commented on, how it still sounds like most characters that can hear them say that stuff. I think that’s what helps people who might be nervous picking up a comic is that really it’s not like the show. It’s not like Superman, it’s True Blood and that’s helped a lot.

DT: If you’re not a traditional comic book reader and you watch the show, you can pick up and know who the characters are and enjoy those experience and maybe after that you’ll see another vampire book on the stands and say, “Maybe I’ll pick that up.” I think True Blood is a good gateway for new comic book readers, and there’s also a number of good licensed properties out there now. Some of the stuff at IDW: the GI Joe, Transformers, Star Trek.

MH: People will find the stuff they remember, but with True Blood, the things that are already out, the most important thing for us was that fans, who were going to read a comic weren’t like, “What? This doesn’t really feel like it.” I think the Buffy comics and the Angel comics have done the same thing, try to look at what the property is, what the license is  and tell new and interesting stories, but it’s still rooted in that world and that’s the most important thing.

(More on Techland: HBO Surfs the Vampire Trend, Renews True Blood for Fourth Season)

MC: So it’s like writing fan fiction, but a lot more fun for you guys?

MH: Yeah and official! As people who have watched the show, it was nice going into something where you know it so well and it’s something you enjoy doing. It’s not like something where you have to go, “Oh I have to catch up.” I know exactly what happened last season. That makes it kind of exciting. It also makes it great interacting with the fans. We’re watching it when they are, we’re curious to see what comes up next. We want to know what’s going on. It’s just fun to explore that world. That’s what I like about storytelling.

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