China Miéville is part of DC Comics The New 52 Second Wave. The Best Selling Fantasy Novelist is taking on the cult classic title Dial H for Hero.
DC’s The Source asked Miéville about the transition to writing his first comic book series and his inspiration.
“Pretty much, I suspect, as people would imagine. Lots of nerves – because comic fans are appropriately passionate and unforgiving, and because it’s a very different kind of writing. I have tended to write at length, I’m a person who likes descriptions and rococo prose, so having to strip that out, or rely on dialogue and so on, has been something I’ve been very nervous about getting right. All of which said, it’s also been an unremitting delight to learn a new way of working. I like doing stuff that’s collaborative, too – writing comics, involving very direct and ongoing editing, more than novels (which save it up for the end), working with cover artists, interior artists, bearing in mind everyone else writing in the universe, the history of the world you’re writing in, and so on, is much more like being part of a gang than my usual stuff. I think it’s gone well. I guess ultimately you have to ask the readers, though.”
“The initial joy that title always gave me was because making up superheroes is so ridiculously enjoyable, it’s a basic game that all of us into comics play, it was always part of our draw for the world of capes. I doubt there’s many comics geeks who didn’t have scraps of papers covered in garish designs and ‘cool’ superhero names. Dial H is the title above all other that is the celebration of the superherogenerative drive – it’s a superhero comic, and a metasuperhero comic at the same time.
Combine that, when I was a little older, with ongoing excitement at how little of the backstory and the universe of Dial H was ever explained, and I find that combination of child-geeky ludic delight and unusually opaque foundations unique in the DC universe, and indeed in any other comic universe of which I know. What I’d like to do is indulge that mystery but also prod at it, explore it, shine a few lights in crevices, without ruining everything by overexplaining. I remain convinced cakes are to be both had and eaten.”
For the entire interview visit this link.
