Janet & Alex Evanovich's Troublemaker

Troublemaker is a unique opportunity for Dark Horse, in which Janet Evanovich continues her best-selling Barnaby series (as first chronicled in the prose novels, Metro Girl and Motor Mouth) with her first graphic novel [co-written by Evanovich with her daughter, Alex]. Troublemaker is a two-part series–the first book comes out in July and the second book is due out in November. I recently email-interviewed the editor of the project, Sierra Hahn, as well as one of the series’ artist, Joëlle Jones. Dark Horse describes the book as follows: “Alex Barnaby and Sam Hooker are back together and fighting crime the only way they know how — by leaving a trail of chaos, panic, and disorder. Alex, an auto mechanic and spotter for racecar driver Sam Hooker, is drawn to trouble like a giant palmetto bug to a day-old taco. Unfortunately, she’s also drawn to Hooker in the same fashion. There’s no steering clear of trouble or Hooker when friends Rosa and Felicia call for help. A man has gone missing, and in order to find him Barnaby and Hooker will have to go deep into the underbelly of Miami and southern Florida, surviving Petro Voodoo, explosions, gift-wrapped body parts, a deadly swamp chase, and Hooker’s mom.” My thanks to Hahn and Jones for the interview and Dark Horse’s Jim Gibbons for his assistance.

Sierra Hahn

Tim O’Shea: When did Dark Horse first approach Janet Evanovich about the possibility of a graphic novel–how much were you involved?

Sierra Hahn: I’ve been assisting on Buffy Season Eight going on three years now, and one day discovered that Janet Evanovich had done an incredibly thoughtful review of Season Eight for Time magazine. After that, Dark Horse reached out to her not only to say thanks, but to see if she had any interest in making comics herself. I wasn’t involved with the initial outreach to Janet, and came on board after a project was decided on.

O’Shea: Given Janet Evanovich’s long track record as a successfully published prose novelist, were you slightly nervous when you took on this editorial assignment?

Hahn: I was both nervous and excited to be working with Janet, and [her daughter/co-writer] Alex. Nervous because this is a very important project for both Janet and Dark Horse, and it’s largely my responsibility to make the process run smoothly and help make the series the best it can be. I was also very excited by the prospect of working with Janet. Her and Alex are extremely savvy and have an insightful grasp of the book industry and their loyal and enthusiastic fans.

O’Shea: Both Janet and her daughter Alex were comic book fans before embarking on this project, but was there still somewhat of a learning curve you had to guide them through in terms of the editing of a graphic novel (versus the prose editorial process they are accustomed to)?

Hahn: When I received the first draft of Troublemaker I was pleasantly surprised by how well Alex responded to the medium. She was very conscientious about the number of panels per page, where an action sequence should fall, how to maintain great page turns, and keep the energy and movement alive throughout. It was obvious to me that she’s a lover of comics, and had studied the nuances of comics storytelling.

O’Shea: Was it challenging to make sure Evanovich’s ear for dialogue and humor was maintained in Troublemaker? Comics require a certain element of economy with dialogue not found in prose novels, for example.

Hahn: Reading both Metro Girl and Motor Mouth—the previous novels from which Troublemaker is based—I really felt like the storytelling found in those prose books would translate well into comics. Janet’s stuff is very descriptive so it’s easy to visualize what’s happening to Alex Barnaby and Sam Hooker (the stars of the books), and against what kind of backdrop. Janet is also known for the snappy dialog, and the witty banter found in all of her prose books. If anything I’ve assured both Janet and Alex that they can put more dialog on the page if they want to.

O’Shea: How did you settle upon garnering Joëlle Jones for this project?

Hahn: When I found out that I’d be editing the Troublemaker books Joëlle was the first artist to spring to mind as the perfect fit. I never looked back. Her artwork has so much life and energy. She’s able to pack a lot of emotion and fluidity into her characters, and I knew she’d make this book absolutely gorgeous. And she’s done just that.

O’Shea: Given how the Evanovichs set the latest tale in the seedy underbelly of Miami, I was curious did you try to provide Jones with visual reference material? Were there certain visual elements that the Evanovichs requested for the authenticity of the book’s look?

Hahn: A lot of the scenes are based on real places in Miami and the surrounding areas, and a lot of photo reference was used to get the environment just right, and pay homage to some local Miami flavor. We brought in Ben Dewey as the background artist part way through the book, and he did a phenomenal job capturing the swamps, the fascinating (albeit creepy) Botanica shops, and the hoppin’ Miami night club scene. The colorist, Dan Jackson brought a lot of life and flavor to each page too, which only enhances the readers experience of that city (something that was really important to Janet and Alex).

O’Shea: How early in the story’s development did Jones draw Beans (the dog who steals many of the scenes he is in–in terms of comedy)–did she have his look down on the first try–or did it take some back-and forth discussions between you, her and the authors?

Hahn: Joëlle pretty much nailed the looks of Beans right away. I think she made a few tweaks—like bigger feet—along the way. And Alex was able to provide great photo reference of her own St. Bernard dog, Barney. Joëlle’s done a great job giving Beans his own personality in this series.

O’Shea: In looking at the advance preview, I was struck by how the colors made Jones art pop even more than usual–who did you get to color the book?

Hahn: I mentioned him earlier, but Dan Jackson is the colorist on this book. He had colored Joëlle’s work for a one shot Dr. Horrible comic that we did last year, and he had a great time doing it. It’s really clear through his coloring on this book that he’s having a blast coloring her work in Troublemaker too. He (along with Joëlle, Ben, and inker Andy Owens) have really brought this book to life. I’m certainly biased as the editor, but the artwork leaps off the page. It’s super fun to look at.

O’Shea: How exciting is to be editing a new series, with a built-in strong fan base like Evanovich has?

Hahn: It’s really exciting to be working on something that has a long-standing and devoted fan base. I’ve experienced loyal fans by assisting on both Buffy and Serenity, and I know what happens when you disappoint said fan base. It’s my hope that Janet’s fans will love this comic as much as they love Janet’s prose, and that her fans will venture to find more great comics to fill their bookshelves.

Beyond Janet’s fans though—I think comics readers who like great adventure stories, goofy humor, and great art will love this book too. This book isn’t only for Janet’s fans—it’s a book that everyone can enjoy.

Joëlle Jones

Beans

According to Jones, she is “also working on a book for Oni—the sequel to Spellcheckers with Jamie S. Rich and Nicolas Hitori De, which is a ton of fun—and a few other small projects”.

O’Shea: Troublemaker is the latest installment in the Barnaby series, but the first graphic novel. How did you go about getting a feel for these established characters while still giving them your own flair?

Joëlle Jones: Janet and Alex, I think, were very clear about what they wanted visually for the characters—they have been working with them for a while now. My job was to give them a little more life and bring them to the page. It was a struggle at first, but I think I was able to satisfy them while still maintaining my style, albeit a little more cartoony than usual.

O’Shea: Am I right in thinking you had a lot of fun drawing Beans, was the drooling aspect something you came up with doing? When Beans waves his tail in Barnaby’s face–was that suggested to you or your own comedic moment?

Jones: I really loved drawing Beans. I have a dog myself and I am obsessed with him. I would spend all day following him around if I could. As far as the drooling, it wasn’t much of a stretch for a Saint Bernard to be a wet mess. I would love to take credit for the great comedic timing in the book, but that is all Evanovich. You can ask anyone who knows me and they can tell you that comedic or otherwise my timing is pretty much always off.

O’Shea: I have always appreciated your gift for subtle character nuances, which in the case of this book, leads to some great visual comedy. Scenes with Hooker’s mom come to mind immediately–given the intensity of her character, how much did you have to resist going broad with those comedy bits (though you skirt close to the broad reaction with some of your facial elements)?

Jones: Thanks. It was a bit of a struggle at first to go bigger without being obnoxious about it, but with gentle prodding from Sierra, I think she and I were able to find that balance. I don’t think that slapstick is really my forte, but this is my take on it.

O’Shea: How hard was it to capture the flavor of Miami in your exterior scenes?

Jones: With Ben Dewey’s help, easy! I did the backgrounds in the beginning of the book but with the schedule we had to bring Ben on board and he really brought the city to life and I am so grateful to have been able to work with him.

O’Shea: The Evanovichs are car fans, given how specific they are about one race scene in the book (“a Porsche GT3 RS versus a Nissan GT-R”), when you have to draw specific car models in a scene–is that easier or harder?

Jones: I really love the challenge of drawing specific things that I have not drawn before, it keeps me excited and on my toes. I am not sure how great the cars ended up looking in the end, but I tried my hardest to portray the enjoyment I got out of drawing them and hopefully that trumps any small mistakes I made along the way.

O’Shea: Do you feel like you had more creative freedom, given that you were dealing with first-time comic writers–or do you always enjoy a great deal of creative freedom?

Jones: The process of this book was very different than any other that I have worked on. I have the feeling that the Evanovichs had a very clear vision of what they wanted from the start, and it was hard to get what they saw in their heads onto the page. It was kinda rocky at first, but I am currently drawing the second book and things seemed to have gotten much smoother now that we have sort of learned how to work with each other.

O’Shea: How does one effectively execute a chase scene in a swamp, of all places?

Jones: I enjoyed drawing that part of the book. Fanboats are also something that I never thought I would have to draw, but the thing that made it easier to draw than a car chase scene is it is all on water, so you can fudge perspective a little more that you usually would.

Grumpy Old Fan

Although I wrote quite a lot over the past year about DC’s weekly series Trinity, I kept coming up with questions that went outside the scope of my weekly notes. Fortunately, writer Kurt Busiek was nice enough to participate in the following e-mail interview, conducted after Trinity concluded (and after he returned from a well- deserved vacation).

We discussed the nuts and bolts of producing Trinity, its connections to a couple of Busiek’s other DC projects, a few nitpicky items, and what the year-long series leaves behind.

* * *

TCB: How did the weekly format affect your approach? Did you feel obliged to pace the book so as to satisfy both the weekly audience and the “wait-for-traders?”

kdb: I always feel obligated to make a project satisfying in whatever formats it’s planned for. So yes, we wanted each individual issue to be an enjoyable read, and we wanted each trade paperback volume to be an enjoyable read. Which was a little tricky, since we didn’t know, going into it, whether it would be collected as 4 TPBs (meaning the volumes would end at #13, 26, 39, and 52) or 3 TPBs (meaning #17, #34 or 35, and #52).*

That said, we were aware that with a weekly schedule, it’s only 7 days to the next chapter, so if one week is light on action (or virtually all action), that would likely be balanced out by the next installment. Or maybe even by the story in the co-feature.

TCB: What sorts of decisions went into breaking the series into individual two-story issues? Were there any labor considerations, for example to give the artists time to rest up for the next crowd scene? Did you and Fabian Nicieza write particular second stories for particular art teams?

kdb: We did try to juggle things for the strengths of the various co-feature artists, yes. But we had flexibility there, because we had enough lead time so that we didn’t have to have them in strict rotation. If we needed two chapters in a row from Scott [McDaniel], for instance, we’d just have to make sure we were plotted far enough ahead that while he was working on chapter one of two, Tom [Derenick] and Mike [Norton] had their own chapters to work on. As a result, the co-feature chapters didn’t come in in order, but we had enough time that we didn’t need them to; we could juggle talent and material and match them up right.

As a rough rule of thumb, we started out giving Scott spooky stuff or crime stuff, Tom big superhero action and Mike “people” stories, but varied that around as we got more of a sense of what they could do. Tom turned out to be very good at space stuff, for instance, and Scott far better at “cosmic/trippy” stuff than anyone might have imagined, possibly even him. By the end of it, we were making sure he got the psychedelic stuff, because we knew he’d knock it out of the park, while at the start we were thinking of him for shadows and mood…

TCB: Especially considering the artists’ deadline pressures, I thought Trinity‘s art was consistently good. Among other things, I feel like I’ve been to Thayer’s Notch now that I’ve seen it drawn by Mark Bagley and Art Thibert; and I was very impressed by Scott McDaniel and Andy Owens’ psychedelic Worldsoul/Krona story. Not that you had low expectations for the art, but were there any scenes or sequences which looked better than you’d written them?

kdb: I agree with you on the art being consistently good — credit the artists, of course, but also credit Mike Carlin, for lining up such a good squad of guys and making sure to manage their schedules right.

As for which scenes looked better than I imagined, I’m tempted to say “All of them.” Getting pages in was a treat, because everyone found ways to go a little further, make it a bit bigger, or funnier, or more affecting. From giant battles to big mystery to chapters like that great Norton/Kesel chapter about the Riddler, which was just perfectly paced, it was a pleasure all the way through.

TCB: Mike Carlin edited most of Countdown, and worked on the “weekly” Superman titles of the ’90s. Was he more helpful with regard to the logistics of the book or the creative aspects?

kdb: Mike weighed in on the big-picture stuff, going over the outlines, the big ideas and so on, but when it came to the chapter-by-chapter stuff, Fabian and I had a pretty good sense of how to play it out, and Mike rarely asked for changes. So I’d say that after the big story decisions had been made, he was very supportive creatively, and had to be the scheduling logistics taskmaster more often than anything else. And his experience juggling a large creative team helped out a lot.

TCB: What was it like collaborating with Fabian? How much input did he have into those scripts, and/or the book’s overall direction?

kdb: Fabian was insanely helpful. On the one hand, Fabian and I have worked together in a lot of different situations, going back to when he was a promotions manager at Marvel and I was a sales manager. We get along, we have a similar enough sensibility that we can pretty easily pull in the same direction, and he’s an inventive and professional writer. One of the reasons Mike didn’t need to involve himself all that much in the chapter-by-chapter plotting was that we pretty much had it covered — Fabian was kind of an extra story editor, where I could call him up and bounce ideas off him, and get feedback and suggestions from someone deeply involved in the story, who wasn’t pulled in a million directions at once by other emergencies.

At the same time, Fabian brought tons of creativity and no ego to the process — he knew going in that I’d be basically driving the bus, and his job was to help. I probably trampled all over his stuff dozens of times, replotting co-features, tweaking the dialogue so much that at points it amounted to rewriting rather than co-writing — but it was all in the service of keeping the two pieces of the issue together and working at speed; it’s simply easier, sometimes, to rewrite rather than talk all the details through.

So in the end, the credits are a bit misleading. Fabian’s name doesn’t appear on the lead chapters, but he was essentially a contributing writer on those, a sounding board, a suggestion guy and more. And my name is only listed as co-plotter on the co-features, but I had a lot more input than that. It was very organic — we were on the phone a lot and figured things out together. So I was driving the bus, but Fabian was co-pilot, or something. He had a number of very good suggestions, pushing me to think harder about Gangbuster and Enigma and others, and making sure I didn’t set something up and then let it fade away when it should play a larger role. He’s had a lot more experience with gang-written books than I do, so he saw pitfalls and structural issues sooner than I did, and kept us from falling prey to them.

And then I’d rewrite all his stuff; what an ingrate!

TCB: Appropriately enough, Trinity itself seems to be the third part of a trilogy, wrapping up storylines from JLA/Avengers and JLA‘s “Syndicate Rules.” How much of what became Trinity did you have in mind when you were writing the earlier stories?

kdb: Almost none of it. We put Krona in the Egg at the end of JLA/Avengers because it seemed like a good place to leave him, somewhere that could lead to something rich, but we hadn’t figured out what, yet. And then in “Syndicate Rules,” we didn’t do a lot with the Egg itself, but built up ideas like the Void Hound, or the CSA’s favor- bank rules, knowing that they’d be paid off later, but again, not precisely how. So it’s more a case of putting things into places that feel like a satisfying resolution for the moment, but have a built-in springboard for further explanation. It’s more about knowing that there’s stuff you can do that’ll work than knowing exactly what stuff that’ll be.

TCB: Apart from simply being shorter, do you think Trinity would have been significantly different as, say, an arc in Superman or JLA?

kdb: Oh, it’d have to be. Keep in mind that the JLA doesn’t turn up until #3, and then is erased from reality for the middle third of the story. If it was a JLA story, we’d have gotten tons of complaints from people who thought we were using JLA as a vehicle to ram the Trinity down everyone’s throats, at the expense of the rest of the League, and then that we weren’t even letting the League be part of their own book. So it’d have had to have been a much, much different story.

Same for if it was in Superman – it’s not a straight Superman story; it’s a story that has Superman as one of the main characters. So to build it more fully around him would change a lot. It doesn’t really fit any existing DC book — to properly describe it, it’s either a book about the Trinity, with a whole bunch of guest stars, or a book about the DCU Universe, with a special focus on the Trinity. So if you don’t call it Trinity, you need to call it DCU or DC Nation or something like that. (It was originally pitched, by the way, as “DC Superstars: Starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman….and The DC Universe!” Which would have fit pretty well, as it worked out.)

TCB: It seemed to me that Trinity shared some of its story structure, at least superficially, with JLA/Avengers. Both stories begin with a quest to gather certain powerful items, which are then used to create an alternate timeline. Although the two stories have their differences, are the similarities just coincidental?

kdb: I think they’re coincidence. The quest-for-power-objects part of JLA/Avengers was there to help make it a travelogue/showcase of the two universes, an excuse to have a lot of fun locations for the fights. In Trinity, it was the villains going after power-objects, and that was to set up the building mystery of the Tarot connections and the personal items that were used in the Trinity spell.

TCB: Another JLA/Avengers question. In JLA/Avengers, I got the feeling you were lamenting the heroes’ various personal tragedies, and saying that no matter how appealing it looked, the combined DC/ Marvel timeline was just a pipe dream. Here, though, the experience of the deified Trinitarians suggests that the characters’ tragedies are inevitable, and perhaps even necessary. What do these stories say about the usefulness of these events?

kdb: In JLA/Avengers, the “tragedies” you’re referring to were things like the Scarlet Witch losing her children, or Hal and Barry being dead — I’d call that the kind of upheaval and calamity that happened to the heroes over the course of their careers, but which they had to accept as their burden to bear to restore the world to what they should be. In Trinity, you mean the legends, with the death of Robin and the Max Lord thing and such, right? I don’t know that we’re saying those are necessary, merely that they were big events that sent the heroes off into directions that isolated them, and they had to overcome those and reconnect with their true missions, rather than obsessing about personal failures.

TCB: Apart from those tragedies, how important generally was it to tell a story about these particular versions of the characters? Was it simply a case of using what had been established and/or what was current? Could you have gotten the same points across with more “timeless” versions?

kdb: I think they were reasonably timeless versions. We didn’t dwell all that hard on minor details — we used recent history in the legend stuff, but we used it in the process of illustrating who the characters are at their core. In another era, with different histories, those legends would have been different, but I’m sure we’d have found ways to say what we needed to say.

TCB: Were there any characters who, for whatever reason, didn’t make the final cut? (Personally, I was a little surprised not to see the “Sword of Atlantis” Aquaman.)

kdb: DC didn’t seem to know what they were going to do with Aquaman, so even though I created that version, I didn’t want to force him into the story. The big loss, to my mind, was Metron — we’d set up that Metron was interested in what would happen to the Cosmic Egg, and then couldn’t use him as we saw it play out because the New Gods were off-limits due to Final Crisis.

And we couldn’t use Madame Xanadu, because of her Vertigo series, but that meant that Charity got to play a role, which spun the story a bit differently, and that was fun.

Overall, though, we got to use most everyone we wanted to.

TCB: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are each inspired by their parents in very different ways. However, Trinity didn’t really concern itself with those differences. Why not?

kdb: It didn’t really come up. We could have made that another aspect of their trinitarianity, if that’s even a word — Superman was raised by loving parents, Batman’s an orphan, Wonder Woman had a single Mom; Superman’s adopted, Batman’s a natural son, Wonder Woman was created…but after a while adding more details starts to feel like you’re just piling them on, not going deeper into the characters.

There certainly stuff there to explore, and maybe someone will do a story about it. But we had enough going on that we didn’t need to add that in, too.

TCB: Here are a couple of really nit-picky questions about the altered timeline. First, why did Hal Jordan become Sky-Knight if John Stewart was still Green Lantern? I take it Hal quit because he couldn’t operate as GL on Earth, leaving John to be the GL of Sector 2814 everywhere but Earth. Also, why did Interceptor wear those goggles?

kdb: Interceptor’s visor has hi-tech sensors in it — it allowed her military bosses to observe what she saw; to see and hear what she did. Part of her being an agent of the government rather than a solo act. Hal Jordan quit being Green Lantern at some point and then built a new identity to keep being a hero, and John became our sector’s GL. Neither of these really came up, but like you say, it’s nit-picky. Given the way comics work, we could see either character again and learn more about them, I suppose. I really got to like Interceptor, and would love to see Supergirl meet her, in a compare/contrast story. Each one would think the other’s life was unbearable; it could be a lot of fun.

TCB: He only popped up briefly here, so where might we see Khyber again?

kdb: Anywhere! He’s out there, but he’s very secretive, so he could pop up anywhere, or stay under the radar for years. He could make a good JLA villain, or get involved with some espionage/intrigue characters, or whatever. We hinted at him in “Syndicate Rules,” by the way, when I was planning him as a JLA villain. But I don’t think anyone noticed.

TCB: The Tarot plays a pretty significant part in the story, especially early on. I imagine that is the kind of thing you want to get right, because you’ll probably have some readers who will know if you got it wrong. Did you have to do a lot of research before you felt comfortable with it? Did you consult any experts?

kdb: Fabian and I got a number of reference books, and used those — I sort of delegated much of that to him, because, well, I was juggling so much stuff I didn’t have the time to be more than cursory about it, and he was willing….

TCB: Trinity works in a lot of Clark’s co-workers from his pre-Crisis days as a TV anchorman. That seemed to me to indicate a fondness for the Cary Bates/Elliott Maggin/Curt Swan era of Superman. Apart from your own work on the Trinitarians, and the ways they’re being handled currently, to whom do you look for inspiration for each of these characters?

kdb: Everyone. I’m not looking to recreate any particular era, and my Superman, for instance, is informed by what Weisinger and his crew did, what Julie [Schwartz]‘s creative staff did, what Byrne and Stern and Jurgens and Ordway and others did…. I like the Bronze Age Superman a lot, especially the Cary Bates issues, but when I write Superman it’s a synthesis of all the stuff I like about Superman over the years. I don’t try to hit particular notes, I simply have a sense of who the character is from reading all those comics, and that guy in my head is the guy I try to get on paper. Same for Batman and Wonder Woman … I’m a big fan of Englehart’s Batman, for instance, but I’m not specifically trying to capture that, it’s just one piece of the mosaic that makes up Batman to me. Wonder Woman’s history is a lot more fragmented, so I suppose I’m more guided by the stuff from what George [Perez] did to what Gail [Simone] is doing today, but there’s certainly parts of the Bronze and Silver Age Wonder Woman in there, stuff that resonates with me and feels appropriate to who she is today.

TCB: Any immediate plans for Trinity‘s supporting cast, including Konvikt, Tarot and Gangbuster, Enigma and Stephie/Void Hound, and Tomorrow Woman?

kdb: I can’t say, at present. I hope we’ll see a lot of them — including the Dreambound — but if there are plans I’m not at liberty to announce them, and if there aren’t I’m too sneaky to admit it.

TCB: Finally, can you share what’s next for the new Earth-Trinity? Should we call it “Earth One,” or was that just a wink to fans of the old Multiverse?

kdb: “Earth One” was a deliberate choice, and done in part at DC’s request. There’s definitely more than a wink going on there.

But again, I can’t say, at present, what it’s leading to…

kdb

+++++++++

* [It turned out to be 3 volumes, with vol. 2 covering issues #18-35 -- TCB]