I love graphic novels. I’ve been reading them since a British magician named Alan Moore plucked my head right off and set it back on my shoulders permanently skewed. I’ve never been much for typical superheros, but give me something by Moore, Daniel Clowes, Robert Kirkman or Brian K. Vaughan and I’m a happy reader.

Of course this would mean that I’ve been pondering writing my own graphic novel for years. That little matter of finding a great artist kind of always stood in the way, though. Well, that and time. And finding a publisher for the finished product. Okay, there were a lot of reasons I never did it.

Until Rocky Wood approached me in 2010 and asked if I would consider working with him on one. He’d just finished the absolutely incredible Horrors! Great Tales of Fear and Their Creators, and was about to embark on a second one with the same publisher (McFarland). Because he’d just been diagnosed with ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), he was concerned about his ability to finish the book.

I get a lot of offers these days, but that was one I didn’t have to think twice about. The subject of the witch persecutions was of great interest to me (and something I’d already studied a bit of, thanks to my Halloween books), I loved the idea of working with Rocky, and the publisher (McFarland and Co.) and artist (Greg Chapman) were already in place.

I’d already studied graphic novel and comic book scripts before I agreed to work on Witch Hunts. I had Alan Moore’s book Writing for Comics, and I had a few other editions of things that included the scripts. I immediately saw that while writing for the “sequential narrative” was somewhat similar to screenwriting – a format I’m well versed in, since I make part of my living as a screenwriter – it allowed for more stylistic flexibility. I was most affected by Moore’s style, which was insanely detailed. Moore didn’t, for example, just describe a street; no, he described every person on the street, what they were doing, what they were thinking, what color their clothes were, which direction they were walking, etc.

Rocky had already written the first chapter of Witch Hunts, and had created a simple template using color codes (thanks to Word’s “Highlighting” feature) that would help Greg distinguish description from text and dialogue (and I’m sorry WordPress doesn’t allow me to recreate our color codes!). Here is Rocky’s script for one page:

Page 29:
TEXT: Following the Feast of St Francis, a particular case came to Court. They had carried Mischief and other things to church, so that everyone believed it to be children. But they had left their children at home and ate them later.

PICTURE: Okay, try this: we have a one page picture split down the middle from say top right to bottom left (maybe by a lightning shape but over to you).

The left half of the picture relates to the text above and shows a couple coming into a small church with two children. But somehow they are not quite real children – you will show something weird in each – perhaps their limbs are out of proportion, or their head is too large/small and if we see their faces they look vacant.

The right half of the picture relates to the text below and shows a great metal cooking pot over a fire and a couple serving up hot food at a rough table to a few other adults. There are no children in the picture but you will slyly hide a severed leg or arm somewhere in the background (or whatever you think will work best).

TEXT: They had killed their own children and cooked them, and took them to their company to eat them. They were found out and we sent them to the Fires.

And here is the finished page:

Rocky had already thoroughly outlined the book, so we divided up the writing by sections, with me taking most of the later sections.

I tried to keep some of the stylistic details Rocky had already set up (for instance, using “Look upon” to begin sections), while letting a little of my own style creep in. Here is my script for page 86:

TEXT: Finally, in 1593, the executions in Trier ended only when the city and its people were too impoverished to continue, the population had too much diminished, and food became scarce because farmers had been among those burned at the many stakes.

PICTURE: This one should be very dramatic: A plough lies forgotten at the edge of a cleared field; the plough looks old and splintered, and it’s tilted in a way that suggests it might be broken. The plough is simple – little more than two long, sturdy wooden handles that connect to a large triangular metal blade, which is half-buried in the soiled. Half of the field had been ploughed, and we can still make out the long furrows; but the other half was never finished, and is already sprouting weeds. In the middle distance, beyond the field, is a river; and glimpsed just past the river is the city of Trier…where three people are being burned at the stake, in an open plaza near the river’s edge. A faceless crowd surrounds the three pyres, and smokes billows into the air, obscuring part of our view of the city

And once again, the finished page:

I think particular applause is owed to Greg for his splendid job of working through the frequently complicated descriptions we threw at him, and managing to meld the work of two different writers into one cohesive whole.

I still hope to write more graphic novels someday, but in the meantime I’m very proud of what Rocky, Greg and I created with Witch Hunts. If you include the research, it took many months to write, and I hope you’ll agree that the end product was worth it.