GRAPHIC NOVEL (so far untitled)

a graphic novel, for them as don’t know, is a sophisticated comic book for adults. (And I do, of course, delight in my Very Sophisticated Readers.) [g] Ballantine, the publisher for this, asked me for a “new” Jamie and Claire story, set in the OUTLANDER universe—but not necessarily just a straightforward adaptation of OUTLANDER. So that’s what they (and you) are getting: a story that sort of cuts at an angle through OUTLANDER. This story is told from Murtagh’s point of view, and begins somewhat before the events described in OUTLANDER (the non-graphic novel).

Since the story isn’t told from Claire’s point of view, we see things that Claire didn’t see, or saw but misinterpreted or didn’t understand. The effect is that there is a new storyline, that weaves through the established events of OUTLANDER. If you’ve read the novel, you’ll recognize the significant events—but you’ll also get a new storyline.

Now, graphic novels being a good deal shorter than novels in term of material, this graphic novel doesn’t encompass the entire original novel. IF it happens to do well, then I imagine there would be further graphic novels that augment the original novels and their storylines. To say nothing of the cool artwork. [g]

Now, a graphic novel is a collaborative effort. I write the script (which involves usually detailed direction as to what happens in each panel of the story), but this is then brought to life by the spectacular Hoang Nguyen, the artist who’s doing the visual part of this project. (You can see some of Hoang’s work at www.liquidbrush.com – fabulous!)

I don’t know whether I can cut-and-paste a page from the graphic novel script here, so you can see what it looks like. If not, you’ll have to wait a bit for us to get it up on the website. There is one sample page up there now, as well as Hoang’s original take (his very first try, and it came pretty close!) on Claire. As we go on, I’ll be able to post more artiwork now and then, perhaps showing you the evolution of a page from script to pencil-sketch to painting to refined, finished panel art.

**** PUBLICATION****

We (the publisher, the artist, and me) are hoping to have this ready to be released in July of 2009. We’d like to unveil it at the Comics Con convention, with both me and Hoang present to sign copies. I don’t have a date for Comics Con yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s around mid-July.