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Hello BC readers, it’s been a while. I’ve been off working on comics (The Freeze Vol 1 trade from Image Comics/Top Cow is in stores now…) but after
Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Andy Belanger, Comics, dynamite, entertainment, HRL, paul cornell, vampirella
Writer's Commentary – Paul Cornell Talks Vampirella #6
We have a new writer's commentary sent over by Dynamite Entertainment. This one has writer Paul Cornell talking about Vampirella #6, with art by Andy Belanger and cover by Philip Tan. Cornell was tapped to do a five-issue arc plus the zero issue, but was asked to stay on with this new story arc.
Page 1:
Editor Matt and I talked a lot about how to make a transition between the real world and the world of dreams, but I think Andy just does it very simply in a cinematic way.
Pages 2-3:
That's an amazing castle, and I repeat my previous tactic, which I think of as very 1970s and black and white magazine, of having the title drawn into the art.
Page 4:
I always wanted to give Grit a voice, and I finally got to do so!
Page 5:
Architectural detail would seem to be Andy's thing, which is a happy accident, given that I give him so much of it to play with.
Page 6:
I love that we get musical notation to indicate music playing inside.
Page 7:
These two issues were an attempt by me to do something fun on the way out of the title, having done five issues of somewhat grim multi-genre dystopia.
Page 8:
I wanted to indicate that Vicki kind of keeps on enslaving herself, that she's still not been entirely freed. But these days, after the fall of the oppressive state, the stakes there are a bit lower.
Page 9:
I think when one is doing an extended dream sequence, one should admit that from the start, and also clearly establish the rules.
Page 10:
We chose 'Beauty and the Beast' as a cool piece of music that involves someone descending a flight of stairs in gothic splendor.
Page 11:
I always wanted to try out a male version of our heroine, and I got to do that too!
Page 12:
And of course, Vampirello is showing off a lot of chest.
Page 13:
I love that Andy has thought about vaulted ceilings and the shape of the table.
Page 14:
Jokes nicked from The Two Ronnies in Vampirella. Shameless.
Page 15:
For the first issue, I thought I'd get to swear, and it turns out I can't, so from then on I've enjoyed the punky feeling of those blanked-out swearword boxes.
Page 16:
I think the male and female versions are just the same, but Vampirella can't quite see that.
Page 17:
The forbidden room is, of course, at the heart of the gothic genre, the rules of which are so precise that they seem to map a part of the human unconscious.
Page 18:
I always like doing movement in one big panel, so I specifically asked for that here, with a lovely staircase. I think Andy really delivered.
Page 19:
I guess I got worried that we couldn't really get through a whole issue without bloodthirsty violence.
Page 20:
I love how Andy kept Vampirella's old collar on her dream outfit.
Page 21:
Panel 3 here features the worst mistake I've ever made writing a comic. I offhandedly insisted that "No, we're on the right draft," when Matt questioned that line about "lots of different versions of yourself," because we'd actually decided to answer that question in the previous issue, and the missing memories Vampirella is now wondering about are those about why she was entombed. The mistake was entirely mine, we'll change the balloon in the trade, and I can only reassure you that the next issue makes sense entirely, and doesn't continue with that balloon's version of events. I'm embarrassed about this, and heartily apologize.
Page 22:
And yes, we're going to see these, and many more versions of Vampirella, next issue!
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