Off Screen : Non-acting projects- On writing he's toying with
- Can you talk about your experience writing the Spike and Dru comic book?
- (2-99 Dark Horse Comics) Chris Golden was on the set doing research for the Watcher's Guide, interviewing the cast members about their experiences with Buffy, and you know, we talked about the show for a while and talked about projects that I had worked on adapting books for the stage for a theater company I had both in Chicago and Seattle called New Mercury Theater. It eventually got around to my favorite play, which I'm adapting for both stage and screen -- not that anybody cares or knows I'm doing it. Chris and I started talking, and I just yammered his ear off about that, and then he just said, "you know, if you wanted to write a comic book about Spike and Dru with me, I'm sure there would be interest in it." I told him that I'd been reading comic books for a long time and would love to. So he called you to see if there was interest in it, and you (Dark Horse) were wonderful and said that there was, and that's how it started. Basically we just threw around story elements first, and came up with something that we liked. My feeling was that the last episode in which we saw Spike and Dru was not a closed book at all. I kinda wondered what the hell happens the second day? I mean she's been around sniffing Angel for the last four months, and I hit her over the head and kidnap her, but what the hell happens when she wakes up? It's not happily ever after. So I wanted to put them through an adventure that would bring them back together, but I wanted to have them start very far apart, just for dramatic reasons. My first idea was that Spike would try to kill her, that she was obviously still thinking of Angel and that he would just lose it and throw her through a wall or a window or something. But Chris and the people at Buffy thought that was just a little too much, so they toned it down just a little bit. But it starts in about the same way, where they are breaking up, and through the course of an adventure, they discover they still need each other. However, since Spike has lost his trust in Drusilla, that brings him into mortal peril. And he discovers throughout the course of the story that he had every reason to trust her. And on Dru's side, the comic book starts with him doing violence to her, so she's pissed! She wants to kill him. So it's really just exploring how far you can take these characters away from being lovers, and in fact make them enemies, and what will it take to get them back together again? And I think that's what lifts them up above stock villains is the fact that they do, indeed, have true love. I wanted to put them into the most romantic setting possible. My first idea was Morocco, kind of a Casablanca sort of thing... God, Morocco, what is that? Stupid American. (laughs). But I wanted to put them in a very different place than Southern California, which I guess has it's own romance, but being that I live there I don't see it, I suppose. Chris had a lot of social information about Greece, and talked to me about putting them in a Greek fishing village, which seemed to me very atmospheric, and I also wanted him... and I'm talking like this is all me. You know, Chris really wrote this more than I did. I should say that full out. I have to say that he was really wonderful and patient and instructive in helping to get me to think of things in terms of using static images, still images that convey things, as opposed to using physical action, which I'm used to. For a film script or a television script, the action flows. With a comic book, you are really trying to find snapshots that convey that information and it's very different. And also just letting me know about the structure -- how many panels one needs, and how many lines per panel, and helping me pare down what I had written so that it could fit into that format. And he really liked my ideas, although he came up with the coolest thing in the comic book, which is the villain. His idea was that there would be a necromancer -- someone who did magic with dead body parts -- and the interesting thing about that is that both Spike and Dru are dead, and so he could then turn around and control their bodies. And I thought that was the coolest idea. That would scare the hell out of a vampire. So he a major influence. [Chris] makes it look so easy! I read 300... God, that is so good! I found that it was a bit like writing poetry actually -- that you had to condense and distill it down to its most basic level. And I think the point about Frank Miller is perfect, because he's able to do that better than I think anybody. He puts very few words on the page, but all those words resonate and expand in your mind, and all the consequences of what people are telling each other expand in your mind as opposed to him laying everything out.
- (2-99 Worlds of Westfield) Chris Golden was writing a Buffy book, The Watchers Guide. He was on set interviewing all the actors, Joss [Whedon, the series' creator], and the producers about it. We started talking about writing, Shakespeare, different books that he's written, and the projects that I've been writing for stage and screen just for myself. I don't have anybody interested in my scripts, but I enjoy writing them [laughter]. He came up with the idea. He said "If you ever wanted to toss around some ideas, I think it might be interesting to have the person who plays the character write something for the character." It sounded very exciting. I've loved comic books all my life, collected avidly when I was much younger and stayed in light touch with the industry ever since. I thought it'd be really cool. I don't know if I'm going to get an action figure out of Buffy, but damn, if they can make me look good in a comic book, that's just as good [laughter]. I want to see Spike kicking some major ass. I like scenes where he just clobbers hundreds of people. It's great. [laughter]. Actors spend their time going around to the producers saying, "Can I have a scene like this? I'd like to see Spike be the coolest guy in the world," etc., etc. And they're like, "Well, we'll try to fit that in." But when you're writing, you can do whatever you want. So that sounded really interesting to me. I think at that point in Buffy I was in the wheelchair, which I just loathed. I wanted to see the character get the hell out of the wheelchair, so I figured the easiest way to do that would be to write it. Joss was very magnanimous about letting me go ahead with it and the people at Buffy have been really supportive of it and never laughed at me, which is great. I think the end product is really good. Between Chris and I, we were able to keep true to the universe of Buffy but also give Spike and Dru a little more stage time just to sit down and talk with each other. Our first conversation was hours and hours and hours long where we laid down the basic plot. First we just kicked around different elements that we might be interested in. I was interested in having the characters torn apart in the beginning, have them not be together, and then have them discover through the book that they do need each other and that they are good for each other. It seemed to be kind of where the series was going as far as having their relationship being very complex with Angel. I was thinking "Let's go all the way with that. Let's just split these two people up." It's kind of what Joss does actually. You show the audience something that they want, then you deny them that [laughter]. So they're going to tune in or hopefully read on hoping to get that. We threw around a bunch of elements. My best idea was that Spike would just try to murder Dru [laughter]. He'd just throw her out of a window and try to kill her. And then, through an adventure, find out that he needs her. Chris came up with a wonderful villain, a necromancer, who is someone who can control dead body flesh, which is basically the central tenant of witchcraft in the Shakespearean sense or the medieval sense. There were a lot of people who would go to battlefields, to executions, to shipwrecks, to try to find bodies that had not been given last rites which meant that they were damned and their body parts could be used for magic. At any rate, he thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to get one of these sorcerers who could manipulate dead body parts, damned body parts, because Dru and Spike and all vampires are in fact dead. So at some point in the book we could discover that this guy could actually control their bodies." I'd never really heard of that before, and that seemed like a really cool thing, so we ran with that. We came up with the basic plot, we broke that down into scenes, and then we each took half the scenes and would write them. He took the first two just so that I could see the format of what the writing of a comic book looks like on the page, and then I took the next couple of scenes. We'd fax each other our work and I'd put my ideas into it and change it. It's kind of funny because we each had our own ideas and he would send me his fully written scene and I'd change it all around and then fax it to him and he'd change it back to the way he wanted. It was easy work, actually. Chris is really wonderful and he was very helpful and very patient with me, both in teaching me comic books and also just really listening to my ideas. I think he's one of the better known comic book writers in the industry. Spike kicks major ass. Dru gets to be very sexy. Dru, when we met her on the series, was in a weakened condition and then, at some point she got strong, but the plot had to revolve elsewhere. I always wanted to see her really kick ass too, frankly. I wanted to see her stand up and be the full Dru that she was without being weak. So, one of the things that I wanted to do was present Dru both as very strong physically and mentally. I wanted to see her kicking ass and I wanted to see her be real sexy, so we've got her almost naked I think [laughter]. That's the only way I'll ever see Juliet Landau naked [laughter].
Have you seen any of the finished pages yet?
No I haven't. But I think Dark Horse in general has a whole cadre of artists that I really like. They tend to go for a very graphic look; they tend to put a lot of ink on the page. I think that that plays with shadow and light really well. I'm really interested with the way light plays on images and one of the artists that really reawakened my interest in comic books was Frank Miller and his treatment of Daredevil, and then Wolverine and, of course, Batman. So I really like that kind of style which is not so much realistic as very graphic. Really bold lines, a lot of different thicknesses of lines. In some comic books it's all very thin lines, which is fine and there's some fantastic work that's been done with that, but I'm more drawn to hard edges and more dramatic looks. They faxed me over some of the stuff that the artist who's working on the book right now did before and it looked very much like that. I was really happy with it. Look for the comic book. I think that people will be very pleased with it. I think that the writing is exceptional [laughter]. It's a good first stab and Chris certainly kept it good quality so I think it's going to be really good.
Would you go through this process again?
I think so. It depends. If it's any good. I've never done this before. I have a feeling that it'll be pretty good because Chris is attached to it and I felt good about the way it had played. The people at Buffy ok every word of every comic book and every book that goes out about Buffy. Chris told me that for the first time that he can ever recall, they sent the script back with no changes whatsoever, so I think that they're pretty happy with it too. I certainly had a good time doing it and it would be fun to see where it goes. Writing is fun. Writing is very fun. It's fun to create a whole universe. Well, I didn't create this universe, basically I just ran with characters and situations that had already been given to me, but still, there's a lot of freedom in it. Yeah, I'd like to do it again.
Would you recommend others on the show do it?
Yeah! I think that any time you live with a character for months and months and months and months and years, the character can grow inside you and take on a whole life apart from the series. There's not always time to give each individual character everything they're capable of doing. There's a whole world inside Xander that has not been explored. There's a whole world inside of every one of the characters that hasn't been explored. I'm sure that every cast member has ideas for the show and they'd like an episode that their character could do A, B, or C, and there's just not time. Even with 22 little movies a year, there's not time to give everybody those kind of story arcs. I think it would be a good outlet.
How did working on the comic compare to working on the show?
My real concern working on the show is that what's on the page gets on film. It sounds kind of easy, but sometimes it's hard. You read a line, you read a scene, and you read the directions of the way the line should be presented and it reads really well. Then you film it and you think "Man. I didn't really achieve everything that the script was asking." My basic concern is when we finish filming a scene, I go back and read the scene and think "Did I miss anything?" That's basically what I do when I'm filming. But when I'm writing, all doors are open. Basically the artist is going to be doing the acting. They're going to show the characters in action. My whole thing was just trying to provide a good springboard for him; hoping to catch his imagination as he's drawing.
Is Spike coming back?
Yeah. I have no idea when or how he's coming back, or if he's going to be drunk, or in a wheelchair, or in a tutu, I have no idea [laughter]. But I love doing the series and they've said that they do want me back this season and either in Angel or Buffy or both next year. It's a lot of fun. The whole crew and cast are wonderful to work with and there's a lot harder ways to make a living than being on Buffy. - (4-99 Cult Times) Chris was on the set doing interviews for "The Watcher's Guide". I always get around to Shakespeare somehow and I told him that I was working on a screen treatment of "Macbeth". He said, 'You know, if we did a comic book I bet it would be published. See, back in Shakespeare's day people would rob battlefields and execution places of the bodies of people who weren't given last rites and therefore damned. The dead flesh could then be cut up and used in spells. This is so gross...never mind.
- (2000 Watcher's Guide Two) I enjoyed writing it very much. Chris Golden was very kind and taught me a lot about what it is to write a comic book, and I'm very glad I did it. I just don’t' have much time right now. They approached me recently to do another one and I had to decline just because of time. I didn't think I could really do justice to it.
- (8-01 GenCon) They approached me ... uh-oh ... I'm going to go ahead and be honest here, OK? They approached me, Chris Golden came to me. Great guy. Christopher Golden. Taught me a lot. When Dru and Spike were leaving after that episode, Season 2. I thought, and everyone else thought, that that was the end of the two characters. Things had changed. They had wanted to kill me off and make Dru much more powerful and link up with Angel and be the villains. They decided to keep me alive, and that switched things I mean, I like my acting. I'm not trying for false modesty. I'm proud of myself. I worked very hard to become an actor. But I haven't worked with someone as good as Joss ever. And I've worked with Tony Award-winning playwrights. So, that didn't allow Dru to become as powerful as she was told. And I was also sick to death of the wheelchair. So, I wanted one last hurrah for the characters. I wanted my dream for the characters. I wanted them to rock. I wanted her to be beautiful and powerful. I wanted him out of the wheelchair and kicking ass. I wrote to Christopher what I thought and what I was very clear to the editors was a twisted romance. I wanted to explain however they could get back together. What happens when Dru wakes up in that car? What's her first move? She jumps out of the damned car. He goes, knocks her over the head again and puts her back into the car. How long could this go on? How could they ever become together again? And my answer was that story. You screw up so bad that she has to save you, and they get back together. I found out later. The art came out. And then it was drawn hideously ugly on both characters. What the head of Dark Horse told me was they wanted to do -- what's that called? -- it's a certain style. It's not Goth. It's horror comic book. They wanted to do a horror comic book for 'Buffy' in that kind of style. But they couldn't because all the other actors had legal protection in their contracts, but I didn't. That's why they came to me. And I was uhhh. 'OK, well, I'll talk to you later then.' They do so really well, and they'd like for me to come back, but I don't trust them. I hate to be sour grapes about it. What I did find out is that I found out an important lesson. I thought that I had control. I thought that someone had finally given me control over the characters. The narrative. I was like, 'Ha, ha!' Guess what? I was just the writer. I was treated like writers always get treated in LA. Which is not very well. 'Yep. We used you, and we're going to tell you right over the phone. Have a nice day.' Fine. A little vim and vigor there.
- (4-04 Starburst) I'm angry about the comic book. I wrote a story that was very clear - it was a twisted romance. They hired a writer and treated it as a Gothic gross-out tale, which wasn't what I wrote. It was a good story, people responded to it, I appreciated that. But if they had done it the way I wrote it, it would have been ten times better. Dark Horse was dishonest with me with how they brought me into the project and what they told me it was going to be. I feel now, unless I can have total control over every single stage of it, I don't have any trust at all. I thought, in all my naivety, that I would have more control if I stopped being an actor and started being a writer. Of course, I found out that is not true.
- (4-07 CreationCon Burbank) You know, it ‘s kind of interesting, I wrote one of the comic books early on and I wrote what I thought was twisted romance for Drusilla and Spike, and they drew really grotesque characters, and I had to go to Juliet Landau, who played Drusilla, and explain to her what I'd created. And she was mad! Because they messed up my story. I thought I'd written a really fun, twisted romance, but romance needs two leads where the women want the man, and the men wanna be the man, you know what I mean? That's what the genre is, and I got angry and I called Dark Horse, and they said, "Well, James, at the end of the day we wanted to treat some of the "Buffy" characters in this Gothic style, and we wanted one of the cast members to write it, and you were the only one that didn't have the legal protection to stop us. Would you like to write another comic book?' And they do write a lot of other really good stuff, but… I was betrayed! And now the problem is that, when they draw Spike, they draw him so damn pretty, and they say, 'Oh, James is really particular about this!' I honestly didn't care about what they did to me; it was what they did to Juliet, because I had to kiss her, you know… (Goofy voice) 'Ooh, I'm your man! I'm making fun of you all over the world!'
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