Where's the line between homage and stealing?
A deep dive into WHERE WOLF Chapter Seven - "The Way It Dimmed"
I am really proud of the seventh chapter of WHERE WOLF - mostly because it’s the one I struggled the most with.
If you were one of the few folks that read the original version of WHERE WOLF when I was publishing it as a serialized online novel back in 2020, you probably noticed how different of a character Gwen Reed is in the comic versus the novel. In the novel, Gwen is almost a non-character - she exists to inform audiences what kind of person Larry is, but has no personal agency or defining characteristics. She puts up with Larry’s bullshit and keeps forgiving him at every single turn. I didn’t set out to write Gwen like this, I just didn’t do the work needed to build her character. I was so focused on Larry and Sophia and trying to cram jokes into every nook and cranny of the story, I didn’t bother trying to develop Gwen into a fully-fleshed-out person.
As I developed WHERE WOLF first into a podcast and then a comic book, fleshing out Gwen’s story became a priority. It was my friend Meredith Borders, who edited the various incarnations of WHERE WOLF, that really helped me hone in on what was needed to develop Gwen and her support and guidance made me want to get her character right. Chapter Seven is where Gwen Reed firmly became one of my favorite characters in WHERE WOLF to write for.
There were a handful of direct influences in the process of developing Gwen:
“The Way It Dimmed” by Amanda Shires
I listen to a lot of music while I write. Not actually during the writing process itself - my brain can’t handle that much overstimulation - but, while I’m working on a writing project I will spend at least a few hours every day walking and listening to music. During this time, I think about what I’m going to try and write when I get home. I think about dialogue and characters and motivations and try and put the puzzle of the story together in my head so that when I get home, it’s all there ready to be assembled. Every now and then I luck out and come across a song that perfectly matches what I’m trying to accomplish with my writing. I fixate on this song and try and absorb the emotions it makes me feel so I can replicate them in my writing, through my own voice. Amanda Shires’ song “The Way It Dimmed” was a big emotional inspiration for the chapter I named it after. I just love the song and the simple yet powerful story she paints with her lyrics.
YOU’RE THE WORST
I’ve written a lot about my love for this show and its flawed but complex characters. There’s a specific scene in the fourth season’s second episode I kept thinking about long after I had finished the show. In the episode Jimmy (Chris Geere) has just returned to Los Angeles after previously leaving his girlfriend Gretchen (Aya Cash) in a dramatic, heartbreaking manner. Jimmy’s unforgivably casual attempt to insert himself back into Gretchen’s life unleashes a fury you rarely see in female characters on television. Gretchen is allowed to get angry. Really angry. Righteously angry. It’s one of my all-time favorite moments in television and I desperately wanted to write a character as interesting and alive as Gretchen.
BOX OFFICE POISON
Alex Robinson’s comic is incredible - one of the best comics I have ever or probably will ever read. I love the way it tells a singular story but packs it full of tangents and asides and small moments whose only purpose is to build characters and make you care about them. It, along with David Lapham’s STRAY BULLETS, is my biggest influence in writing WHERE WOLF. Both books are my North Star in what I hope the comic can be.
This page:
is my homage (theft?) of this page from BOX OFFICE POISON:
So much of WHERE WOLF was born from my reading Robinson’s books (TRICKED is also fantastic!) and saying to myself, “Wait! You can do that in a comic book?”
THE BADASS WOMEN I KNOW
When people ask how much of WHERE WOLF is autobiographical, my official response is that Larry (and really all the dudes in WHERE WOLF) are the worst parts of myself exaggerated and Gwen and Sophia are the best parts of the coolest women I know, no exaggeration needed. Gwen is directly influenced by the incredible women I’ve had the pleasure of knowing in my life - small pieces pilfered here and there from friends, co-workers, girlfriends, relatives, and more. Steal from the best, right?
Right.
Speaking of influences, this weird exchange in WHERE WOLF is directly inspired by my favorite weird exchanges from ALIEN: COVENANT.
I love how ALIEN: COVENENT just tosses out the detail that Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) had an interaction with the Biblical Devil as a child. As in Satan. Lucifer. Bezelbuth! And the movie just moves right along, never touching on this again. Wild stuff! It makes me think of Stephen King’s short story “The Man in the Black Suit.”
In other news, tell me you wrote a werewolf story in the middle of the COVID pandemic without telling me you wrote a werewolf story in the middle of the COVID pandemic:
Speaking of unfortunately timely references, the panel below was meant to be a lighthearted joke but - because of the gubernatorial leadership in Texas and its preference to be owned by the NRA and gun lobbyists instead of doing anything to protect its citizens from mentally unwell people who are easily able to obtain high-power assault rifles, this joke turned from one of my favorite gags in the book to something that makes me cringe every time I see it:
Get ready! Chapter Eight drops tomorrow at FANGORIA.com and it’s a doozy. WHERE WOLF is about to go from a horror-comedy to a horror-horror story pretty dang fast. Get ready to say goodbye to some characters you love and have your heart broken because shit is about to go down.