Indie Edge November 2011: David Lapham

So how about a book about werewolves, but done like we’ve never seen them before; done in a new way?  Sure yeah.  Sounds great.  Wolves.  Pages and pages of “GRRRR” and” RAGRRRR!” and “AWOOOOOO” and “RUFF RUFF”.  Throw in a little blood, a little sex.  Sure, any monkey could write that.  Might as well pay this monkey to do it.

Then along came Dale Chesnutt..  Sheriff’s deputy, foul-mouthed womanizer.  After about the fifth “Goddamn” in six lines of dialogue, I was in love with this guy.  And who are these Ferals?  Silver bullets, changing with the moon like some wimpy furverts Incredible Hulk?  Out with all that.  Who are these Ferals?   Who is Gerda.  Man, she can get under your skin.  Literally. Can I put Vikings in this book?   How far can we take this?

Epic. 

Ferals is a true ongoing.  An ongoing that will inevitably end (a very long way off) because it will evolve.  It will go places other books don’t.  Where is that?  Better I should ask: why is my keyboard covered in blood?

Y’see, at Avatar I can “go there.”  That place where other companies ask for a rewrite.  No rewrite.  I don’t have to film a scene with a vice and your brains just to distract you so I can keep the scene with the hatchet and your brains.  Your brains can go anywhere I want.  Yes sometimes holding back is more horrible than showing everything, but sometimes showing absolutely everything is more horrific even than that.  And just the fact that I could means that even when I don’t, you do it for me.

Is this my artist?  Are you kidding me?  This is an ongoing?  Gabriel Andrade’s pages are so perfect for an ongoing, he’s a writer’s dream. The characters and the environments are so real.  His is the kind of art that sucks you into a world, into story, into nightmare.

So my easy wolf book turned into a very long, involved, deep, character driven, horror epic that can and will “go there” early and often.   Strap in and get ready to...

“OOK!”

–David Lapham