MattBrady
10-31-2002, 01:17 PM
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Hedge2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Hedge2_t.jpg" width="175" height="263" align="right" border="0" alt="Dunk realizes his destiny"></a>Michael Moorcock, R.A. Salvatore, and a select few other fantasy writers who’ve seen their works adapted into comics will get some company in February when Roaring Studios released issue #1 of acclaimed fantasy author George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight. Martin’s novella is being adapted as a six-issue miniseries by the fledgling studio, under the creative team of Ben Avery, Mike Miller, Mike Crowell and Liquid!.
Martin’s story first appeared in the second volume of Legends an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by Robert Silverberg. The story, which lays the groundwork for Martin’s novel series, A Song of Fire and Ice, has developed something of a cult following among Martin’s fans.
For folks not familiar with Martin’s story, probably the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that a “Hedge Knight” has nothing to do with that other group of knights that have a thing for shrubbery.
“Basically, a Hedge Knight is a mercenary knight with no allegiance to a lord or a king,” Roaring’s Business Director and Vice President Les Dabel explained. “In the story, the main character, ‘Ser Duncan the Tall,’ takes on the mantle of his dead master and goes to compete in a tournament. The closest comparison I could give to someone who hasn't read the story would be the movie A Knight's Tale - you basically have a knight with nothing but a name trying to compete in a tournament full of more distinguished competitors. And that's really not too bad of a comparison, because anyone who liked A Knight's Tale will probably enjoy The Hedge Knight as well. The difference is, The Hedge Knight is a much better, deeper story.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/19_issue_1.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/19_issue_1_t.JPG" width="165" height="241" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #1, page 19"></a>And doesn’t have Robbie Williams signing Queen songs, either…
“Honestly, the best way to understand the story is to pick up a copy of Legends volume 2 and read the novella for yourself,” Dabel continued. “The story basically involves the adventures of a young man named ‘Dunk’ - formerly a squire of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, who has just died when the story begins, who enters a tournament in a town called Ashford Meadow. Dunk faces several obstacles in getting set up in the tournament and makes some friends and enemies in the process. Eventually, a tragic event forces him into a position where he is forced to defend his life - and his honor - against a prince who is bent on destroying both.”
But back up for a second - Roaring Studios was founded by DB (Dabel Brothers) Productions in the Boston, Mass area in June of 2001. While they’ve released a few books so far, The Hedge Knight will be their biggest and most ambitious release to date.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Aerion.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Aerion_t.jpg" width="165" height="276" align="right" border="0" alt="Aerion"></a>With that under your belt, if you’re scratching your head on why Martin, an award-winning and well-respected fantasy author would chose to take one of his better known properties to a relatively unknown studio, you’re not alone. Dabel can still scratch his head as well at the studio’s fortunes.
“It's a mystery to everyone involved,” Dabel said, in regards to Martin’s choice to allow Roaring Studios to adapt his novella. “What more can I say? We got very lucky. Mr. Martin liked what we had to offer and seems to think we have the ability to pull this off. He's described this as sort of a ‘first date’ - if things go well, Roaring may get the chance to adapt A Song of Ice and Fire into a comic book series as well.”
According to Dabel, Martin has a very active role in the process of turning Hedge Knight into a comic. “Mr. Martin approves everything we publish, and even selected the writer to handle the adaptation out of a pool of several submissions. If we have any questions about the story or the way things should look, he's more than happy to provide us with the information that we need.”
The Heart of the Art
Along with Ben Avery, who is adapting the story, Martin approved the artist for the project, Mike Miller, who has done work for among other things, DC’s Superman titles, as well as X-books and Savage Dragon.
“Mike is an incredible artist, and signing him on was really as simple as asking,” Dabel said. “When he first started, he had no idea who George R. R. Martin was or what the story was about; now he's a huge Martin fan, and right now, he's reading his way through the end of A Storm of Swords [to which The Hedge Knight is a prequel] when he's not drawing.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/8_issue_2.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/8_issue_2_t.JPG" width="165" height="244" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #2, page 8"></a>For Miller, the offer from Roaring Studios came at a time when he was looking to stretch his wings somewhat and leave capes and tights behind for a while. “I really did want to do something a tad more realistic than the standard comic fare,” Miller said. “Not that I have anything against superheroes, I love superheroes, but it's always been kind of a pipe dream of mine to 'save the comic industry'…’ yeah, I know. Anyway, it's been a 'plan' of mine for years to try to do something that would reach beyond the typical comic market and bring fresh new readers into our industry.
“When Les was trying to 'sell' me on taking on The Hedge Knight, the opportunity to do just what I've been hoping for all these years really pulled me in. And after I had some preliminary artwork up on the net and I was getting messages from people saying 'I haven't read comics for over a decade, but this book is going to pull me back in!' I knew I was doing the right thing. It's funny, but I always hoped it would be 'me' that reached outside the mainstay market and brought in new readers, but I'm not so arrogant as to pass up a chance like this - George R. R. Martin has literally millions of fans. A little poll I've been running on one of his news groups is indicating that almost 60% of those fans will pick up this book if it's good. 30% of them said they'd pick it up sight unseen, and I know that's all George. He's the man, and I can't express how stoked I am to be working with him.”
Miller said that he has free reign to design any of the characters, as long as they generally remain within the perimeters of the descriptions in the novella. “George tells me 'only the printed word is Canon' in regard to the designs,” Miller said. “So there were no actual visuals I had to go on, other than some fan artwork and the heraldry someone had designed for George's website. But what he wanted of me was to keep the characters as true to medieval reality as possible.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/DaerontheDrunk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/DaerontheDrunk_t.jpg" width="165" height="277" align="right" border="0" alt="Daeron the Drunk"></a>That said, Miller stressed that with The Hedge Knight, he’s striving to, as much as possible, keep the characters and objects in the world realistic, despite…technically, the story falling into the fantasy camp of literature.
”This is fantasy, but it's fantasy based on reality,” Miller said. “It's not earth, but George wanted it to really look like medieval Europe. So I went out and hunted down a lot of medieval reference, and I'm constantly looking for more now. Knights, weapons, heraldry, horses, barding, royalty, peasants, castles... whatever might have made its way into medieval times, I want to keep it true as much as possible. And for the jousting action, I went out and bought A Knights Tale, just to better understand how people react when being slammed in the chest by a pole coming at you at 25 miles per hour. I can't just make that stuff up, or it'll look fake. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't extrapolate a bit on some fancy armor and make it original and cool, but I'm not about to make it look like BattleChasers either. That’s not a slight on BattleChasers - I loved that book, but I’m just approaching this art differently.”
And so far, Dabel is very pleased with Miller’s efforts. “Mike's got a great sense of realism in his art, and he's always very careful to draw what the text says and not what he thinks would look coolest. Just to be safe, Mike often posts concept art on George R. R. Martin related message boards to get fan responses and to make sure he's stayed true to the text.
“Mike also brings a lot of experience to the table; he's been around and knows the ins and outs of the industry. We've been very grateful to have him onboard, and I think I can say with a lot of certainty that this project would not be able to happen without him.”
Matters of Text
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/HedgeKnight_1_and_2.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/HedgeKnight_1_and_2_t.JPG" width="250" height="183" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #1, pages 1 and 2"></a>With six issues, Roaring’s Hedge Knight will run 150 pages, compared to the novella, which runs 140 pages. There’s the rub – since a page-for-page translation isn’t possible given that one page of Martin’s text would not correlate with one page of art, the question becomes: what must stay and what must go?
“While the drawings convey a lot of the detail the text elaborates on, there's just not as much room for all of the interior writing - thoughts, character motivations, and so on - that's in the original writing,” Dabel said. “So, we've given Ben the daunting task of having to translate the text as literally as possible without sacrificing the artistry of the medium. Fortunately, Mike and Ben work very well together, and the finished product is something I think fans are going to love.”
Is the End the Beginning?
As Dabel mentioned earlier, if Martin is pleased with Roaring’s end result, and the book is well-received, the team will get the first crack at adapting both Martin’s A Storm of Swords, as well as his planned sequel to The Hedge Knight, which continues the adventures of Dunk and his squire, Egg.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Steelypate.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Steelypate_t.jpg" width="165" height="281" align="right" border="0" alt="Steelypate"></a>In a market where medieval fantasy is enjoying a slight resurgence thanks to the efforts of CrossGen and a select few other publishers, Dabel said he feels that The Hedge Knight has what it takes to catch hold and survive in a marketplace that’s exceedingly hostile to new projects from small publishers.
“The Hedge Knight has quite a few positive points,” Dabel said. “First of all, it's really a very good story - this is not your typical swords and sorcery or knights and jousting sort of fantasy cliché. It has characters who, good or bad, right or wrong, are likeable and realistic, and the world itself is extremely developed. Unlike a lot of fantasy epics, the world of A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't really introduce its fantastic elements until much later in the story; The Hedge Knight is realistic enough that it could be taken straight out of history.
“Second, the adaptation is top-notch from a fantasy standpoint and a comics standpoint. Readers of both genres will enjoy this story; it's something just about anyone can pick up and find immediately accessible.
“Finally, the marketing behind this is geared not only at comics fans, but at fantasy fans and casual readers as well. We're not disguising our intentions here; we're concerned about creating a project that George R. R. Martin fans will love and that comic book fans will love, but we also want to create something that's appealing to people who don't usually read comics. That's why we're planning to get this into major booksellers in mid-to-late 2003 in the form of inexpensive trade paperbacks, and that's why we're going to promote this book in as many creative ways as possible. We really think it's going to be something that anyone can enjoy.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Tanselle.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Tanselle_t.jpg" width="150" height="300" align="left" border="0" alt="Tanselle"></a>For the studio, The Hedge Knight is just the beginning of what they hope will be a long run as a comic publisher. Coming in 2003, the studio plans to publish Roaring Monthly, that will publish ten reader-created stories (running four pages each) every month.
“Readers can pick up entry forms for Roaring Monthly by buying our regular comics,” Dabel said. “We let the reader provide whatever he or she can, and we take care of the rest in-house - readers are encouraged to do whatever they can as best they can and to let our editors crank their work up to speed.
“We are also committed towards publishing a wide range of comics that aren't afraid to break new ground and reach new audiences. We're currently developing a book called Hymns which is a visual retelling of the stories of the Bible - while it might not be something your typical comic book fan is going to rush out to buy, it's something a lot of churches throughout the world have already expressed an interest in pre-ordering. Currently, we've got a really nice blend of fantasy and science fiction stories, but I expect as we go on that we'll be picking up a diverse range of projects and tapping into as many genres and markets as possible.”
The studio’s website is: <a href="http://www.roaringstudios.com" target="_blank">http://www.roaringstudios.com</a>
Got something to say about this? <a href=http://classic.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=agree>CLICK HERE</a> to register and join one of comics' most active online communities. Registration is fast and easy.
Martin’s story first appeared in the second volume of Legends an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by Robert Silverberg. The story, which lays the groundwork for Martin’s novel series, A Song of Fire and Ice, has developed something of a cult following among Martin’s fans.
For folks not familiar with Martin’s story, probably the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that a “Hedge Knight” has nothing to do with that other group of knights that have a thing for shrubbery.
“Basically, a Hedge Knight is a mercenary knight with no allegiance to a lord or a king,” Roaring’s Business Director and Vice President Les Dabel explained. “In the story, the main character, ‘Ser Duncan the Tall,’ takes on the mantle of his dead master and goes to compete in a tournament. The closest comparison I could give to someone who hasn't read the story would be the movie A Knight's Tale - you basically have a knight with nothing but a name trying to compete in a tournament full of more distinguished competitors. And that's really not too bad of a comparison, because anyone who liked A Knight's Tale will probably enjoy The Hedge Knight as well. The difference is, The Hedge Knight is a much better, deeper story.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/19_issue_1.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/19_issue_1_t.JPG" width="165" height="241" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #1, page 19"></a>And doesn’t have Robbie Williams signing Queen songs, either…
“Honestly, the best way to understand the story is to pick up a copy of Legends volume 2 and read the novella for yourself,” Dabel continued. “The story basically involves the adventures of a young man named ‘Dunk’ - formerly a squire of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, who has just died when the story begins, who enters a tournament in a town called Ashford Meadow. Dunk faces several obstacles in getting set up in the tournament and makes some friends and enemies in the process. Eventually, a tragic event forces him into a position where he is forced to defend his life - and his honor - against a prince who is bent on destroying both.”
But back up for a second - Roaring Studios was founded by DB (Dabel Brothers) Productions in the Boston, Mass area in June of 2001. While they’ve released a few books so far, The Hedge Knight will be their biggest and most ambitious release to date.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Aerion.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Aerion_t.jpg" width="165" height="276" align="right" border="0" alt="Aerion"></a>With that under your belt, if you’re scratching your head on why Martin, an award-winning and well-respected fantasy author would chose to take one of his better known properties to a relatively unknown studio, you’re not alone. Dabel can still scratch his head as well at the studio’s fortunes.
“It's a mystery to everyone involved,” Dabel said, in regards to Martin’s choice to allow Roaring Studios to adapt his novella. “What more can I say? We got very lucky. Mr. Martin liked what we had to offer and seems to think we have the ability to pull this off. He's described this as sort of a ‘first date’ - if things go well, Roaring may get the chance to adapt A Song of Ice and Fire into a comic book series as well.”
According to Dabel, Martin has a very active role in the process of turning Hedge Knight into a comic. “Mr. Martin approves everything we publish, and even selected the writer to handle the adaptation out of a pool of several submissions. If we have any questions about the story or the way things should look, he's more than happy to provide us with the information that we need.”
The Heart of the Art
Along with Ben Avery, who is adapting the story, Martin approved the artist for the project, Mike Miller, who has done work for among other things, DC’s Superman titles, as well as X-books and Savage Dragon.
“Mike is an incredible artist, and signing him on was really as simple as asking,” Dabel said. “When he first started, he had no idea who George R. R. Martin was or what the story was about; now he's a huge Martin fan, and right now, he's reading his way through the end of A Storm of Swords [to which The Hedge Knight is a prequel] when he's not drawing.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/8_issue_2.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/8_issue_2_t.JPG" width="165" height="244" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #2, page 8"></a>For Miller, the offer from Roaring Studios came at a time when he was looking to stretch his wings somewhat and leave capes and tights behind for a while. “I really did want to do something a tad more realistic than the standard comic fare,” Miller said. “Not that I have anything against superheroes, I love superheroes, but it's always been kind of a pipe dream of mine to 'save the comic industry'…’ yeah, I know. Anyway, it's been a 'plan' of mine for years to try to do something that would reach beyond the typical comic market and bring fresh new readers into our industry.
“When Les was trying to 'sell' me on taking on The Hedge Knight, the opportunity to do just what I've been hoping for all these years really pulled me in. And after I had some preliminary artwork up on the net and I was getting messages from people saying 'I haven't read comics for over a decade, but this book is going to pull me back in!' I knew I was doing the right thing. It's funny, but I always hoped it would be 'me' that reached outside the mainstay market and brought in new readers, but I'm not so arrogant as to pass up a chance like this - George R. R. Martin has literally millions of fans. A little poll I've been running on one of his news groups is indicating that almost 60% of those fans will pick up this book if it's good. 30% of them said they'd pick it up sight unseen, and I know that's all George. He's the man, and I can't express how stoked I am to be working with him.”
Miller said that he has free reign to design any of the characters, as long as they generally remain within the perimeters of the descriptions in the novella. “George tells me 'only the printed word is Canon' in regard to the designs,” Miller said. “So there were no actual visuals I had to go on, other than some fan artwork and the heraldry someone had designed for George's website. But what he wanted of me was to keep the characters as true to medieval reality as possible.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/DaerontheDrunk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/DaerontheDrunk_t.jpg" width="165" height="277" align="right" border="0" alt="Daeron the Drunk"></a>That said, Miller stressed that with The Hedge Knight, he’s striving to, as much as possible, keep the characters and objects in the world realistic, despite…technically, the story falling into the fantasy camp of literature.
”This is fantasy, but it's fantasy based on reality,” Miller said. “It's not earth, but George wanted it to really look like medieval Europe. So I went out and hunted down a lot of medieval reference, and I'm constantly looking for more now. Knights, weapons, heraldry, horses, barding, royalty, peasants, castles... whatever might have made its way into medieval times, I want to keep it true as much as possible. And for the jousting action, I went out and bought A Knights Tale, just to better understand how people react when being slammed in the chest by a pole coming at you at 25 miles per hour. I can't just make that stuff up, or it'll look fake. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't extrapolate a bit on some fancy armor and make it original and cool, but I'm not about to make it look like BattleChasers either. That’s not a slight on BattleChasers - I loved that book, but I’m just approaching this art differently.”
And so far, Dabel is very pleased with Miller’s efforts. “Mike's got a great sense of realism in his art, and he's always very careful to draw what the text says and not what he thinks would look coolest. Just to be safe, Mike often posts concept art on George R. R. Martin related message boards to get fan responses and to make sure he's stayed true to the text.
“Mike also brings a lot of experience to the table; he's been around and knows the ins and outs of the industry. We've been very grateful to have him onboard, and I think I can say with a lot of certainty that this project would not be able to happen without him.”
Matters of Text
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/HedgeKnight_1_and_2.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/HedgeKnight_1_and_2_t.JPG" width="250" height="183" align="left" border="0" alt="Hedge Knight #1, pages 1 and 2"></a>With six issues, Roaring’s Hedge Knight will run 150 pages, compared to the novella, which runs 140 pages. There’s the rub – since a page-for-page translation isn’t possible given that one page of Martin’s text would not correlate with one page of art, the question becomes: what must stay and what must go?
“While the drawings convey a lot of the detail the text elaborates on, there's just not as much room for all of the interior writing - thoughts, character motivations, and so on - that's in the original writing,” Dabel said. “So, we've given Ben the daunting task of having to translate the text as literally as possible without sacrificing the artistry of the medium. Fortunately, Mike and Ben work very well together, and the finished product is something I think fans are going to love.”
Is the End the Beginning?
As Dabel mentioned earlier, if Martin is pleased with Roaring’s end result, and the book is well-received, the team will get the first crack at adapting both Martin’s A Storm of Swords, as well as his planned sequel to The Hedge Knight, which continues the adventures of Dunk and his squire, Egg.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Steelypate.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Steelypate_t.jpg" width="165" height="281" align="right" border="0" alt="Steelypate"></a>In a market where medieval fantasy is enjoying a slight resurgence thanks to the efforts of CrossGen and a select few other publishers, Dabel said he feels that The Hedge Knight has what it takes to catch hold and survive in a marketplace that’s exceedingly hostile to new projects from small publishers.
“The Hedge Knight has quite a few positive points,” Dabel said. “First of all, it's really a very good story - this is not your typical swords and sorcery or knights and jousting sort of fantasy cliché. It has characters who, good or bad, right or wrong, are likeable and realistic, and the world itself is extremely developed. Unlike a lot of fantasy epics, the world of A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't really introduce its fantastic elements until much later in the story; The Hedge Knight is realistic enough that it could be taken straight out of history.
“Second, the adaptation is top-notch from a fantasy standpoint and a comics standpoint. Readers of both genres will enjoy this story; it's something just about anyone can pick up and find immediately accessible.
“Finally, the marketing behind this is geared not only at comics fans, but at fantasy fans and casual readers as well. We're not disguising our intentions here; we're concerned about creating a project that George R. R. Martin fans will love and that comic book fans will love, but we also want to create something that's appealing to people who don't usually read comics. That's why we're planning to get this into major booksellers in mid-to-late 2003 in the form of inexpensive trade paperbacks, and that's why we're going to promote this book in as many creative ways as possible. We really think it's going to be something that anyone can enjoy.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Tanselle.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/Tanselle_t.jpg" width="150" height="300" align="left" border="0" alt="Tanselle"></a>For the studio, The Hedge Knight is just the beginning of what they hope will be a long run as a comic publisher. Coming in 2003, the studio plans to publish Roaring Monthly, that will publish ten reader-created stories (running four pages each) every month.
“Readers can pick up entry forms for Roaring Monthly by buying our regular comics,” Dabel said. “We let the reader provide whatever he or she can, and we take care of the rest in-house - readers are encouraged to do whatever they can as best they can and to let our editors crank their work up to speed.
“We are also committed towards publishing a wide range of comics that aren't afraid to break new ground and reach new audiences. We're currently developing a book called Hymns which is a visual retelling of the stories of the Bible - while it might not be something your typical comic book fan is going to rush out to buy, it's something a lot of churches throughout the world have already expressed an interest in pre-ordering. Currently, we've got a really nice blend of fantasy and science fiction stories, but I expect as we go on that we'll be picking up a diverse range of projects and tapping into as many genres and markets as possible.”
The studio’s website is: <a href="http://www.roaringstudios.com" target="_blank">http://www.roaringstudios.com</a>
Got something to say about this? <a href=http://classic.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=agree>CLICK HERE</a> to register and join one of comics' most active online communities. Registration is fast and easy.