Alan Moore | Girl Meets Monster

Last week, I spoke with comic book aficionado and co-owner of the award-winning comic book shop, Comicazi, Michael Burke. This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes writer, artist, and all-round delightful person, Cat Scully.

Cat Scully is the writer and illustrator of YA horror comic-novel Jennifer Strange, releasing July 2020 from Haverhill House Publishing. Cat is best known for her world maps, which have been featured in Brooklyn Brujas trilogy by Zoraida Cordova, Winterspell by Claire Legrand, and Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis. She works in video game development for the Deep End Games, designing user interfaces, maps, and concept art on their next title. She is represented by Miriam Kriss of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

She loves Earl Grey tea, video games, Evil Dead, Hellboy, watercolors, horror books, comic books, and anything involving outdoor sports.

For agent inquiries, please contact Miriam Kriss of Irene Goodman Literary: Miriam@IreneGoodman.com

Website: CatherineScully.com
Twitter: @CatMScully
Tumblr: CatMScully
Instagram: CatMScully

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Cat. I’m so glad that you could join me. Last week, I spoke with Michael Burke, who is the co-owner of a comics store and says that he developed a love of reading through comics as a kid. He’s an advocate for childhood literacy and encourages kids to read comics to get started. What were some of the first comics you read, and how did they influence you as an artist and writer? What comics are you reading now? Who are your favorite comic artists?

CS: Thank you so much for having me here! I’m really excited to be on your blog! So as a kid I didn’t have a lot of access to comics, mostly because comics weren’t something my parents would you know put money down on. I did earn a lot of babysitting money being much older than my siblings, so what I had I spent on Manga. That was my first introduction to comics. I read Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, and anything by Clamp. Honestly, for Jennifer Strange being in the horror camp, one of its biggest influences is actually Sailor Moon. The art style informed how I think about hair, how it flows, and consequently, I draw very epic sweeping hair to this day. I didn’t get into comics until college where I read my first ever comic from my school library – Watchmen by Alan Moore. I hardly ever cry at books, but I cried reading that one. I was determined to write something one day that was part comic, part novel, but instead of it being primarily comics with some prose, I wanted to achieve the opposite by writing a full book that was also told as a comic. Jennifer Strange ended up being a huge undertaking as a result because this book is part journal, where you follow along with what the sisters are reading as they try to solve it, so you get to solve the mystery too, but there are a ton of Easter eggs in those pages that are hints at books 2 and 3. From Watchmen, I dove into Batwoman, who is still my favorite comic book character to this day, and the only character I’ve ever cosplayed. All of the full spreads in Jennifer Strange are because of J. H. Williams drawing this impressive full, double-page spreads. I wanted to do the same with my book. But my favorite comic book? It’s HARROW COUNTY, hands down. You can’t get me to shut up about the writing of Cullen Bunn and the art of Tyler Crook pretty much ever. I’m obsessed with the deep southern voice of Cullen and the dreary, bloody watercolors of Tyler. I’ve watched so many of his process videos on loop. I can’t recommend that series enough.

GMM: Tell me about Jennifer Strange. Judging from your fragment, she deals with paranormal nasties and goes on some interesting and scary adventures. Without too many spoilers, can you give a synopsis of the story and what inspired the book and character?

CS: Here’s the jacket copy for Jennifer Strange, and it gives a pretty good idea of what you’re in for: Jennifer Strange is cursed with the ability to give ghosts and demons a corporeal body with just the touch of her hand. All she wants is to learn how to control her new gift. Instead, her father drops her in the care of her older sister Liz, leaving only his journal as an explanation. Jennifer and Liz haven’t spoken to each other since their mother died, but when the supernatural residents of Savannah, Georgia find Jennifer and her powerful gift, the sisters must learn to trust each other again and uncover the truth about their parents. If they can’t sort out their differences, they’ll not only destroy the veil between the living and the dead but fall into the hands of a rival family who wants to claim the Sparrow power for themselves. This book has got rival families with hatred spanning over decades, no clear cut villain or hero, monster boys, hate-to-love relationships, snarky sister banter, southern gothic flavor, brutal and gory battles, secret family histories, haunted antiques, custom symbology I made exclusively for the book, and terrifying artwork in the vein of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I wanted to write a female-driven Evil Dead, complete with my own Necronomicon, and full of just as much horror-comedy. I really hope people dig it because I’ve always wanted more girls fighting gross monsters books where they are also funny and fun.

GMM: When I’m writing, I see entire scenes in my mind either before or while I’m writing them. As someone who works in visual mediums, which comes first for you, the images or the words? Do you prefer telling stories with images, or simply writing prose? Where do your scariest ideas come from?

CS: I have such a weird process since I’m an artist too, and honestly, I’d consider myself an artist first. If I get stuck in a story, I draw the scene to figure it out. That’s how the ending of Jennifer Strange happened. I was so stuck on how to end it for so long and I ended up drawing the final scene which leads to overall what happened. I’m also a huge plotter. I have to sit down and bullet point out what I want to do before I do it otherwise my brain is all over the place with too many ideas. When I sit down to the computer, I sometimes veer off course though, because when I write it does end up going where the story feels is best. I originally wrote Jennifer Strange as a TV pilot as the thesis for my undergraduate screenwriting project, and so I always saw this book as a series of storyboards. That translated into comics when I decided I wanted to try publishing the thing as a book first. I could never not see this book as a visual, breathing entity. It needed to be art as much as it needed to be words. And not all my books are that way. My other books with my agent are all prose, but there was always something special about Jennifer, something that said it had to be art. And that’s why I’m so glad I went with Haverhill House Publishing! They really let me go for it the way I wanted the book to be, and I’ll forever be grateful to my editor John for taking me on and believing in my book as much as he has. He’s a true gem in the horror community. As far as what I prefer, I really love drawing chapter headings or single pieces of art, rather than doing an entire comic book. I love writing prose, and really diving into a character’s head in the first person. I’m not really much for third person. It’s just not immersive enough for me. I want to be that person when I write them, and 3rd person is too much distance. I do get a lot of my scariest ideas from movies and video games because I am SO visual. I get a lot of ideas from dreams too because my dreams tend to be pretty messed up. I don’t really get scared when I read books, but I do when it’s visual. I get SO SCARED during horror movies! I will totally cover my eyes and hide. It’s so funny that I get so scared because I love horror so much, but I guess I just love to be scared. It’s just so much fun to be scared, and I hope people have fun being scared when they read Jennifer Strange.

Excerpt from Jennifer Strange

“SPARROW.”

I blinked awake. The room was dark. Too dark. My heart pounded inside my chest as I realized the lamp had stopped spinning. Normally, the stars would sweep around the room across posters of all the places I wanted to travel to when I graduated high school. Only, this wasn’t my bedroom and I wasn’t back home and the lamp sat there like a broken toy in the spare room of my sister’s apartment with its bare, white walls.

I reached out. My fingers cramped as if winter had just breathed across my skin. Impossible. It was almost summer. Maybe the air conditioning unit under the window was broken. I pushed off the sheets, making a leap for my robe hanging on the back of my door. The carpet was so cold it pricked my feet. I slipped on the robe, but it did absolutely nothing to warm me. I waved a hand over the air conditioning unit and it whirred pleasant hot air against my fingertips. Only one thing could make the room this cold, and it was in the apartment with me.

A noise came from the other side of my bedroom door. It clattered and slammed, clattered and slammed as if someone was opening and shutting the kitchen silverware drawer. No. It couldn’t be the Wraith. Bloody Mouth was dead. I glanced at Dad’s journal, which was still resting all crumpled and neglected on top of the hamper where I had thrown it before I fell asleep. I picked it up by the spine and flipped open the pages. There might be something in the pages that could help me.

I tried flicking the bedroom light switch on. Nothing. I reached for my dresser drawer and pulled out the flashlight Liz gave me for emergencies. Dad was the one who started calling her “Safety First Liz” or “Operation Preparation.” For the first time ever, I was grateful she was the most Girl Scout person on Earth. The light came on and illuminated the pages. I flipped to a section where I knew I saw some runes, towards the center of the book. One was listed as a ward against the supernatural, that it could be used to repel ghosts and lesser demons, but I needed a pen to draw it. My bookbag. Shit. It had all my pens and it was destroyed by the Wraith. The only other pens were out there, in the living room.

As I reached for the doorknob, the clanging stopped. Little currents of blue light snaked up the back of my fingers. Something was definitely out there. My power knew it, I knew it, but was it a ghost or a demon that had found me?

The brass handle turned all on its own. The flashlight flickered in my hand as I held the book out in front of me. The bedroom door swung open with a creaky whine. I listened. There was nothing but the sound of my own breathing. The living room stretched out like a massive black hole in front of me. I had to take care of this entity myself, but go out there? Alone? That option was a great big old pile of nope.

I pointed my flashlight into the gloom, but it was like trying to shine a light into a giant storm cloud.

“I know you’re out there,” I whispered. “I know what you want.”

Metal scraped across metal in the direction of the kitchen. Something brushed against my back. My bedroom door slammed shut behind me. I dropped the flashlight and the room went dark. I kneeled and felt around the carpet. Shit shit shit shit SHIT. Something collided into my calves and sent the journal flying from my hands as I face-planted into the floor.

It pressed down on my back. “Get off me!”

My arms flailed around my back to grab it, but my hands met only air. The pressure increased like someone had dropped a stack of weights on top of my back. I choked as my spine sank down against my rib cage and lungs. My legs and arms flailed. I clawed the carpet, struggling for air.

The pressure sank into my skin and I took one last, small gulp. My body flopped once and then went completely still. The weight on my back released. I could breathe, but the pressure was still there, crushing down inside of me instead of on top of my skin. There came a whoosh and my skin pricked all over as if I’d just been hit by a gust of snow. I instinctively raised my arms to block the wind from my face, but they didn’t respond. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t move my arms. My fingers, my toes, my legs—I tried anything, everything. Nothing moved when I told it to.

My right arm lifted. The sensation was distant from my mind, my control, but I felt it happening. My left arm lifted. I was on my knees, but I hadn’t put myself there. I screamed, but it was all inside. My body was a cage, and I was trapped inside.

My hands reached up and around behind me, flattened against the floor. My back arched as my body bent backward and lifted off the floor. Hair dangled in front of my face as I floated up to the ceiling. Tears itched the top of my eyelids as I urinated without warning. Warm liquid trickled down between my legs and little droplets hit the carpet below. Tears ran over my forehead and into my hair. I had to calm down, do something, but what? My body wasn’t mine anymore.

In the warm pit of my stomach, something wiggled around like a snake. It crawled out of the base of my spine, slithered up and out of my throat, and spoke using my mouth.

“Possessing you was too easy,” my voice said.

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Yesterday in my post about Mr. Darcy I talked a little bit about how he wrong actor can make an excellent fictional character a disappointment to fans on screen. I mentioned the poor casting choices of two of my favorite fictional characters, Lestat and Louis in Interview with the Vampire. Anne Rice’s vampires are some of the most interesting characters on the page and they deserved to be played by actors who could capture their essence on screen. I’m sure most of us can think of at least one example of how our favorite characters from books have been destroyed by the wrong actors.

One of my favorite comic book characters comes to us from the DC Universe. To be more specific, from their Vertigo imprint. Typically I fall for heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe, but sometimes DC does certain things a little better. And, when you’ve got Alan Moore involved it’s kind of hard to go wrong. My love of this character gives further credence to the fact that I am a hopeless anglophile. An anglophile who loves stories about magic, demons and Hell. If you haven’t checked out the Hellblazer comics you probably should. I need to thank my good friend David Magaro for turning me on to these comics. Don’t you love having friends who clue you in to things that make life a little bit more interesting?

February 20: John Constantine

John Constantine is an antihero who battles demons and you know, tries to save the world from time to time. Sounds like a nice guy, right? Well nothing is every truly black and white, so don’t get your hopes up too high. Constantine’s heart is usually in the right place, but his decision making often has dire consequences and his methods for achieving his goals are a bit shady and usually dangerous. Like using black magic to combat darker magic and supernatural beings.

Constantine is called Hellblazer because he’s been to Hell and back. More than once. I mean he doesn’t consider it a vacation spot, but his job sometimes requires him to visit. That alone gives him serious street credit when it comes to hunting and exorcising demons. But he’s got other mad magical skills. Aside from his grasp of magic, he can summons demons and angels. He wears a snazzy trench coat full of demonic power, and he’s an accomplished con artist and lock picker.

Constantine’s an interesting guy. He’s been described as a “working class occult detective,” and while he comes from Liverpool, he’s usually stationed in London. Like an well-crafted character he’s got major backstory. His mother died giving birth to him, and while in utero he strangled his twin brother with his umbilical cord. His mother’s womb was weaken by a previous abortion his father forced her to have, which caused the birth complications. Rather than taking responsibility for his wife’s death, he blames John and they spend his childhood hating each other. His dad was an alcoholic, abusive, and arrested for stealing a neighbor’s underwear. So, you know, excellent role model.

Constantine’s bloodline connects him to some very powerful magicians, and as he discovers his ancestry he develops a keen interest in magic, and he began practicing magic at a young age. Some pretty complicated and impressive spellwork for someone his age, like hiding his childhood vulnerability and innocence in a box so he no longer has to deal with it. Growing up in London in the 1960’s and ‘70’s he formed a punk band, Mucous Membrane, and later become a stage magician in the 1980’s where he earned a name for himself by predicting Reagan’s assassination. Seriously, how cool is this guy.

One of his first attempts at becoming a hero in the occult realm went terrible wrong. In order to banish a demon that was conjured by an abused child to take revenge on the adults hurting her, Constantine and his friends summon their own demon. As you might imagine, it doesn’t go well. They didn’t have control of the demon, and when it destroys the child’s monster, it torments John’s friends and drags the child to Hell. Soon after, he commits himself to a mental hospital because he can’t deal with the guilt.

Are you hooked? You should be. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for Constantine’s adventures. When I began this post I mentioned that problem of casting the wrong actor to play a great character. Well, the first attempt at putting Constantine on screen was the live-action 2005 film starring Keanu Reeves in an Americanized version of the story.

Well, he is smoking. That’s a start.

The film itself isn’t terrible, but Reeves just isn’t believable as Constantine. The rest of the cast is impressive—Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, Peter Stormare as Lucifer, Djimon Hounsou as Papa Midnite, and Pruitt Taylor Vince as an alcoholic priest who communicates with the dead. Oh, and Gavin Rossdale plays a half-breed demon, Balthazar. Great cast, right? Sure, but the most important character missed the mark almost completely.

Cats have something to do with magic, right?

In 2014 NBC brought Constantine to television with Welsh actor Matt Ryan. Finally, a believable Constantine. He looked like Constantine. Sounded like Constantine. Had his bad attitude and a big heart. And they did their best to stay within cannon.

Yep. That’s John Constantine.

I was glued to the TV each week. But apparently I was one of the few people watching, because the show got canceled after one season. I was disappointed. It was off to a great start and I had so many high hopes for the show. In the short time it was on TV, I fell hard for Matt Ryan’s Constantine.

John-Constantine-constantine-nbc-37914470-1024-682

Wow, it’s like someone bothered to read the comic book.

Matt Ryan has reprised Constantine in a 2015 episode of Arrow on the CW. I would hope that this might inspire another network to pick up the series or at the very least think about bringing a more believable film adaptation to the big screen. A fangirl can dream, right?

Smoking is sexy. You should start tomorrow.

Am I the only one who enjoyed this show? I can’t possibly be the only one who sees how Matt Ryan is perfectly cast as this super fucking cool fictional character.