These comic books, if you pick them up and get into reading them as a kid, as I did, they get into your system and just take root there. Here I am, into my 30s, and not only are they still something I enjoy, but they’re how I make my living, too. (Which, first of all, is something I never even thought about but however I stumbled into it, I’m glad I did—working on things I’m passionate about certainly beats the alternative.) I’ve had dabblings and near-misses as far as getting comics published in the past—I have a check stub from Marvel comics with the description “kill fee” filed away, the check long since cashed—and since I’ve been at IDW Publishing, ten months now, I’ve had my name in the indicia and ran a short prose story I wrote a couple months back, and have even been doing letters pages for the books now, too. But I’ve never had a book that had me listed as “writer,” so this feels different to me.

It feels even better that the comic is SHAUN OF THE DEAD #1, an adaptation of the movie (with a bit more thrown in, too). I had someone e-mail me recently and ask about adapting a movie and how to begin, and since it seems to be an answer that lasts longer than a few lines, I thought I’d run through the entire process so far.

Step One: Be In Tight With Your Editor

This is easier said than done, of course, but in my case, it was easy since my role at IDW is that of Editor-in-Chief. Meaning I steer the publishing line and, among other things, match up writers and artists on projects. We’d been talking to Universal about doing some movie adaptations—this is maybe last August or so—and most of the projects on the table were older properties, classic Universal monster movies and horror flicks (IDW is home to horror comics and comics based on licensed properties like TV shows, movies and videogames, for those not in the know). Not bad but… but what about this import horror-comedy called SHAUN OF THE DEAD? I’d managed to see a bootleg of that a few months before, thanks to someone from our message board here. In fact, him getting me that copy probably helped me land the writing gig, but I’m jumping ahead here.

SHAUN was another option, one I was wholeheartedly behind. The only problem with that is… well, I’d already fallen in love with the movie and just couldn’t envision handing over the writing chores to anyone else. I had to do this. Luckily, it was part of my deal at IDW that I take on some writing work in addition to my other duties, so it made sense to pursue this one myself. I just had to convince Universal, and Edgar Wright, the movie’s co-writer/director, to let me handle their property.

When Edgar was in Los Angeles, I met with Edgar, and we discussed the movie. He wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of an adaptation as much as he was into extending the story, or telling stories using other characters from the movie and fleshing things out. Only, this being his movie (along with co-writer and star, Simon Pegg), they’d need to write those comics. I wouldn’t presume to step on them and push for that. And with the advance buzz on SHAUN, Edgar was already in demand and unable to commit to doing new comics at that point. So, cool, we’d start with an extended adaptation, get a first story on the bookshelves and then explore the option of doing more. Believe me, I’ll do everything I can to get FROM DUSK TIL SHAUN or some other sequel going if their schedule possibly allows for that.

Thanks to my, er, bootleg of the movie, I watched it numerous times before the meeting. Luckily, I’d already loved the movie and watched it repeatedly before ever getting the IDW gig, so I could pretty much recite chapter and verse from the movie during our meeting with Edgar, his rep and the Universal contact. And since the movie was a good six weeks from opening domestically, I think that might’ve impressed him. Whatever the case, I left there with them signing off on me as writer. Now I just had to actually figure out how to adapt a movie I loved and not mess it up.

Step Two: Pretty Pictures Can Carry You

SHAUN OF THE DEAD was going to be a three-issue miniseries. I took the script home and took rough notes; namely, where the best breaks in the story would be, in order to serialize it in a way that not only made sense, but left cliffhangers of a sort so the books ended on scenes that would bring you back the following month. There was one problem with this—the script needed to be broken into four parts, not three (I actually could’ve gone for five issues, in order to preserve all the dialogue and work in some planned extra bits, but five was pushing it). So I pushed for and got four parts, not three. Again, it helped knowing the editor…

Now, the most important part—who would draw this book? I had all kinds of ideas of artists to run by Edgar and Simon, but I admit that I was maybe a bit more fussy than I normally am. I wanted to overachieve on this one. You always remember your first time, you know, and I wanted ‘er to be hot! (Figuratively, I mean)

I had some great samples from people, but there was one other artist. A guy named Zach Howard, who I’d met in Chicago at the WizardWorld show a few weeks earlier. I was just walking through artist’s alley there (the row where artists peddle their wares and display their work, a nice place to go trolling for any style you might need, or just a great place to talk to artists and check out their stuff) when I saw Zach’s stuff. I was only maybe three months on the job then, so I wasn’t going out of my way to recruit yet or anything—mostly, I was still finding my way and just looking. But Zach’s samples stopped me—we talked for a little while, and I vowed to find something for him.

Pretty much any project I had after that, I checked in with Zach. He was busy with some work for a place called “DC Comics” or something like that. I think they do comics, too, but I’m not really familiar with their stuff. I think they had a hand in the CATWOMAN movie, if that tells you anything. Anyway, Zach and I hadn’t quite found the project yet, and he wasn’t looking to do a movie adaptation by any means, but I ran it by him anyway. I think of him the way Kevin talks about Affleck—if there’s a role available, he could play it. If there’s a job in need of an artist, Zach could draw it. Seriously, before I go further, check this out, his first images to land the gig:

(You may’ve noticed the Shaun image in a recent issue of Rolling Stone. They ran a small piece on the comic, which was really cool. They also neglected to mention IDW, and credited Edgar with my quote and named him as writer of the comic, and didn’t mention Zach, which was less cool. But they showed this art, so it wasn’t all bad. Plus, you know, I was (peripherally) in Rolling Stone, still a cool thing to me. In June, they tell me there’ll be a full-page piece on the comic with a little interview with Edgar and Simon, too.)

I talked Zach into it, and now maybe I’ll shut up and just show you why this is such a good thing. Zach doesn’t do “photorealistic” art or any such thing—his stuff is stylized and just perfect for this. Simon loves his likeness (“I have lots of hair,” he said. He also said “outstanding” when he saw the finished first issue), and I particularly love what Zach’s done with Ed. Here, along with some beautiful colors from Thompson Knox, is a random sampling of what Zach’s doing with the book:

So now you can see why I’m so proud to have my name on this book.

One thing about doing this site is that, even while I’m hearing from people overseas or seeing our weekly hit counts, since I do the work on my laptop at home, I can give myself the illusion that I’m writing in a vacuum—it make it easier to not feel self-conscious or foolish about what I’m writing (seriously, I can’t let myself think that people read my TV Recommendations for serious viewing advice without finding myself on the fetal position and vowing to never make another bad TV joke again. With SHAUN, it’s not that easy to convince myself that people won’t be reading. Actually, since I’m doing this for my employer and would like the sales to justify the costs at the very least, that’d be a bad thing. So the entire time I’ve been working on this, I’ve tried not to listen to the voices in my head that kept telling me that fans of this movie would be checking it out and holding it up to the high standard the movie set.

Then again, no one gets into writing anything without at least developing a thicker skin over time, so I realize some people will attack it and I’m okay with that. For now. I think. Until I actually read it. Basically, I was writing this for Simon and Edgar—if they approve and think it’s good enough to be out there with their names on it, then that’s good enough for me.

In Two Weeks: more on adapting the movie. But first, Next Week, a fair (kinda), impartial (sorta) look at Fox's return of FAMILY GUY and launch of AMERICAN DAD.

/chris

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