Following my post highlighting Jose Arana’s new comic Chronicles of a Necromancer: Seeds of Destiny (Issue 1), I asked him a few questions regarding his work.
– Jose, what inspired you to write the comic?
The story’s been on my mind for years, but I didn’t get a chance to write it until last year. Glenn and I have been in talks since December 2013, when I personally chose him from about 100 applicants. Without including our talks beforehand, it took us about a month to finish the first issue.
The inspiration came from the novel Sabriel by Garth Nix. I had been planning to adapt his book to a screenplay format. I actually contacted him directly and was so happy to receive a reply. He was so nice and I was honored to hear back from him. He told me he had actually written the screenplay himself and was working on pitching it to various entities.
My comic book series is also inspired by movies and TV shows I watched while growing up. I love The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter films and books, Charmed, and especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon’s a genius.
– I couldn’t agree more. Whedon practically defined what we now call YA genre. You mentioned your illustrator, Glenn, and something about applicants. How did you two meet?
I found my illustrator Glenn Jones through Freelanced.com.
– Wow, I didn’t expect that. How does that work?
Glenn Jones is located in Baxenden in England, and I work out of Los Angeles. We’ve never met in person, but we keep in contact through Skype and email. It’s surprisingly easy to share ideas. We live in a global world highly influenced by the increasing amount of connectivity. It’s quite freeing. We definitely make an effort to talk to each other every other day whenever we can. We both have busy schedules and constantly need to take into consideration that there’s a time difference of eight hours. Sometimes, that means speaking every few days.
– And what about the future? What are your plans?
As you know, all seven issues will be self-published on my website; visitors can buy it there. At the moment, only Issue 1 is available, but as soon as all issues have been published, I plan to to gather them into a single graphic novel. After that, I plan on adapting my comic book series into a web series. Then, the next step is pitching it or producing it as a film or television series.
– An ambitious plan! I wish you every success!
Readers, you can find Chronicles of a Necromancer: Seeds of Destiny on Jose’s website
