Dr Colleen Douglas Bringing Shakespeare’s Vampires To Hastings

Posted in: Comics, Present Information | Tagged: colleen douglas, Shakespeare’s Vampires

Dr Colleen Douglas is bringing Shakespeare’s Vampires to Hastings Comedian Con this weekend

Bleeding Cool favorite, Caribbean horror author Dr Colleen Douglas, has a brand new guide out for this weekend’s Hastings Comedian Con, Shakespeare’s Vampires, however it comes within the wake of profitable Glyph Awards and a brand new quantity of her Shook Anthology popping out from Darkish Horse Comics. And within the pub final week, I organized for comedian guide creator David Baille to talk her up…

David Baille: Colleen! It is nice to talk with you, and I am unable to wait to your upcoming look on the inaugural!) Hastings Comedian Con this weekend. However first, can I ask, what’s it like now that you’re ‘the award-winning Colleen Douglas’?Colleen Douglas: It is nice to be seen and recognised within the comics house for what you do, and in my case, after being in comics for a decade, it is particularly grand.

David Baille: I adored your graphic novel Silk Cotton (with artwork by the wonderful Jesus Gan!). It attracts deeply from Caribbean mythology. What impressed you to convey this wonderful folklore into the comics medium?Colleen Douglas: I suppose the age-old adage applies to Silk Cotton, and that’s “make the comics you need to see.” There have been no books on Caribbean Supernaturals (Anansi will not be from the Caribbean; his heritage is West African, and people tales got here with the transatlantic slave commerce). I wished to make a novel guide that was particular to me and stemmed from my childhood.

David Baille: Just a few years in the past, I wrote a sequence primarily based on Scottish mythology and located myself having to invent far more than I had deliberate to fill story gaps. Did you have got the identical expertise?Colleen Douglas: In my case, it’s the actual reverse; it is a matter of being discerning with what to depart out of the tales in order to not solely mortify an rising viewers.

David Baille: Oh wow – are you able to give us an instance of one thing you unnoticed? I am completely intrigued!Colleen Douglas: One of many supernaturals I unnoticed, often because the story didn’t require it and is sort of a head turner, is named a DOUEN (pronounced like dwen, rhymes with Gwen), a personality of folklore greatest recognized for having toes that face backwards. They’re additionally described as having no distinguishable facial options aside from a mouth, usually disguised by giant floppy straw hats. Douens are mentioned to be youngsters who died with out having been baptised and so are pressured to roam the earth perpetually. They reside in forests, are mischievous and playful, and invite reside youngsters to play with them. These youngsters comply with the douens into the forest and get misplaced, due to the douens’ backwards-facing toes, it’s troublesome to trace them and the youngsters they kidnap. One other a part of the lore about douens is that it is best to by no means shout a baby’s identify at evening outdoor. Should you do, a douen may hear the identify after which name the kid in a mother or father’s voice, thus luring them away into the forest.

David Baille: Your tales usually mix horror, fantasy, and science fiction. What attracts you to those genres, and which authors or comics have most affected your work?Colleen Douglas: I’ve at all times been drawn to atmospheric horror since I used to be a child, from films to books, King, Barker, Lumley, Bizarre Tales and Superb Tales, A Basket Stuffed with Heads, Bitter Root and Field of Bones. It is the inexorable pull to that factor form shape-shifting within the nook of your eye, that you may’t fairly understand, however you simply know it is shifting nearer as you flip away. You say goodnight to your buddy of their mattress after which go them within the lavatory, brushing their tooth on the best way to your room.

David Baille: Your CV is filled with intriguing nuggets, however I used to be notably drawn to a point out of you having a PhD in Historical Financial Programs! That sounds fascinating – are you able to inform me extra about that? And the way has this educational background influenced any of your storytelling?Colleen Douglas: It is simply in regards to the first sort of forex trade, bartering, adopted by coinage and mixtures, together with chattel. The primary coin was from the Kingdom of Lydia and made from electrum alloy stamped on each side to indicate silver and gold, aka siglos and darics, respectively. My area of interest space is especially the Byzantine cash period, and people are primarily gold solidus with the conob marker, which suggests it was struck in a Constantinople mint and is obryzum (1/72 of a pound of pure gold). The 72 is part of the financial foot used for the stable and comes from the Greek numbering system. The upshot of figuring out that is you grow to be an obsessive analysis nut once you write comics, and in the event you’re me, you grow to be weirdly distinctive with the content material selection of your tales!

David Baille: You have labored as each a author and an editor for a number of publishers, together with Darkish Horse. How does your editorial expertise affect your writing course of and storytelling model?Colleen Douglas: The best way I write creatively actually doesn’t mirror my editorial model. I’m fairly structured and minimalist with panel layouts, and I do not are likely to micro-manage, as I just like the inventive group I work with to have some enter of their very own.  I am rather more versatile with editorial recommendation; it in all probability comes from the thought of wanting to assist different creators get the very best work earlier than the eyes of their readers.

David Baille: Is that what you search for in an editor, your self?Colleen Douglas: Sure, undoubtedly, an excellent editor is price their weight in gold, and an awesome one will at all times put the creator first and, the place vital, let you know the bare reality. To me, having such an individual in your nook is invaluable and may solely enhance your comics expertise.

David Baille: With “Shakespeare’s Vampires”, reimagining basic literature in a supernatural context, what attracts you to remixing established tales, and what challenges do you face in making them really feel recent and related?Colleen Douglas: I really like an excellent remix, I prefer to problem the established norm and produce new views to my work, and I believe reimaginings are at all times fascinating when recontextualised. For me, particularly, the problem with Shakespeare’s Vampires was about adapting sure gadgets from the unique play to suit the brand new storyline in an actual approach that will make the reader sufficient to contemplate the idea a risk. Like Romeo and Juliet being vampires. The pure query is, how did this occur? I used the prevailing system of Friar Laurence’s medicinal information to bridge that concept. I set the story in London, particularly Camden City. There’s a fairly wealthy historical past in that space and a classy modern-day distinction, plus there are catacombs, that are good for vampires.

David Baille: Wait. Camden has catacombs? How come I did not know that?! Have you ever been down there?Colleen Douglas: Muhahaha! Sure, there are “catacombs” in Camden, although they don’t seem to be actually so, as they had been by no means used as repositories for our bodies like these in Paris, however had been somewhat underground passageways and engine vaults created for Horses and Pit Ponies by Robert Stephenson. It ran from the Roundhouse to Regents Canal, the place an underground “pool” was made to drift heavy timber and metallic for the tracks on pontoons. The realm acted as a secure walkway for the horses working within the station within the nineteenth century. Underground wheels and pulleys housed in engine vaults would additionally energy the tracks, serving to to tug heavy trains from Euston as much as Camden City by rope. Therefore, the reason being that once you go to Camden Market, you’ll be able to see an space known as “The Stables”. Lately, it is closed to the general public, however it has been recognized to function a space for storing for whiskey, wine and gin!

David Baille: What’s going to you have got with you, and what can followers count on after they meet you this weekend at Hastings Comedian Con?Colleen Douglas: I’ll definitely have Silk Cotton and, after all, Shakespeare’s Vampires together with my first comedian Titan amongst different goodies. I’m on a panel or two, so who is aware of, there may be an opportunity to listen to me learn an excerpt, you may simply have to return alongside and see!

Keep up-to-date and assist the location by following Bleeding Cool on Google Information at this time!