I’ve gotten so tired of sword and sorcery fantasy and all the elves and dwarves and reluctant heroes that populate those books. I still like fantasy, but I want to see a different approach to it. In his novel, Here, There Be Dragons, James A. Owen does just that – he takes people and places we’re familiar with, spins them around in an unexpected context and includes elaborately detailed illustrations for good measure. Here, There Be Dragons has been optioned by Warner Bros. and Owen is currently working on adapting the novel as a screenplay, in addition to writing and illustrating the second novel in the series, titled The Search for the Red Dragon. Here, he talks about the genesis of the series and adapting it for film.
Pink Raygun: I’m still an English major nerd, so I loved the sort of “League of Extraordinary Fantasy Authors” you have going on in Here, There Be Dragons.
James A. Owen: Oh, I’m just getting started! Most people, are at least a large number of people, know who the main characters of the book are [J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams], so I can really just rip the lid off, which is what I’m doing with the next one. In the second book, The Search for the Red Dragon, which I’m doing illustrations for right now, we deal with John’s predecessor as Caretaker of the Geographica. His predecessor never actually made an appearance in the first book, but its James Barrie.
In Here, There Be Dragons, I mentioned other Caretakers throughout history, but in The Search for the Red Dragon, it turns out they were rejected Caretakers. They were recruited, but they weren’t well suited to the job. One of them – British explorer Richard Burton – is the leader of a colony in the Archipelago. Then from him, we start finding out about all these other Caretakers, all well known people from throughout history who have had brief excursions in the Archipelago or flirtations with taking care of the Geographica. By the time we get to the fourth book, there will be two warring factions of Caretakers fighting over the right to take care of the Geographica and decide the fate of the Archipelago.
[nms:James A. Owen,4,0]
PRG: You said earlier that Here, There Be Dragons grew from a short outline you presented to producer Marc Rosen. What sparked the idea for the story in the first place?
JO: The original idea came from a throwaway line in one of the Mythworld novels I did for a German publisher. There was a combination library/bookstore/gallery/museum in one of them and I needed to describe some rare and unusual books, one of which was an atlas owned by HG Wells. I needed a name for it and I called it the Imaginarium Geographica. That was part of it.
The other part was where the name of the book came from. “Here, There Be Dragons” is from old mariners’ maps where it is actually written on the western edge of the map to warn, “Here is the edge of our knowledge. Beyond here, there be dragons, so go no further.” I’d always wondered, what if some ignorant first mate decided to go further? What would he find beyond that? Because at that point in history, we didn’t know. Sailors hadn’t mapped everything yet and didn’t know what was past the edge of the map in their hands. I thought that was such a great concept – actually exploring a land we knew nothing about.
The third part of that conceptual tripod was that people like John, Jack and Charles were actually friends in real life. You’ve seen it at conventions. People – who, through their work, influence people all over the world – come together at these conventions and are all friends. They end up hanging out together, going to dinner together and sometimes going on vacations together. The fact is, that’s happened for centuries: people in a particular field tend to congregate together. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. Its such an interesting idea to me that people who can have such diverse ideas in their books became friends.
PRG: Each chapter in Here, There Be Dragons starts off with a detailed illustration. What leads you to pick a certain scene or image to illustrate for each chapter?
JO: I develop the outline for the book simultaneously with the thumbnails. Sometimes the story for that chapter grows out of one image I want to get across, the same way that I layout my comic books. Starchild has always been done as thumbnails first. When I’m laying out the visuals, I’ll write notes in the margins about dialogue and events. I kind of did that with the novel, where sometimes I knew where the story needed to be and I’d choose an image from that fleshed out story. Sometimes I wasn’t sure, but I had one good visual in mind, so I go with the visual and write the story around that.
The second book was fairly hard. I’ve been posting my finished images online on my livejournal page. My hand is very sore right now, because I really didn’t skimp on these! The last illustration I posted is this ornate antique mirror on a cave wall. It has a woman’s reflection in the mirror, there’s swirling fog behind her in the reflection, then there’s smoke going across the front of the mirror inside the cave. I’m really glad that one is done.
PRG: You’re also adapting Here, There Be Dragons for a movie. What are some of the challenges you’re facing in adapting your novel to a screenplay?
JO: Otherwise known as killing and eating your young [laughs]. The main thing is making sure I’m aware the format is different. Stuff you can do in a novel with a descriptive passage or an insanely rendered illustration, you can’t really fudge in a screenplay. Every scene you write in a screenplay translates to a million dollars and a hundred people working on something. So you have to be aware that everything you write has to move the story forward and be worth that investment. And it has to be clear and straightforward. There have been some challenges, but other than that, it’s not a whole lot different than everything else I’m doing.
PRG: How has it been working with the studio?
JO: For the most part, they’ve left me alone so far. I’ve been working with the producer and director and they give me feedback on the notes, and for the most part they hired me for a reason. They like what I do and trust I’ll be professional. They’ve backed off to give me the room to do what they paid me to do.
For more on The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, including Here, There Be Dragons and The Search for the Red Dragon, visit the official website. For more on James A. Owen and his other works, please visit Coppervale International.
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