Pierce Tries to Tame the White Tiger
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 25, 2006 Sign up now!
by Ian Brill, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 4/25/2006
Tamora Pierce is known for her fantasy novel series The Songs of the Lioness and The Immortals. The White Tiger is a new female iteration of a 1970s Marvel Comics character, created by Brian Michael Bendis in the pages of Daredevil. Pierce is the latest prose writer to take on a comics series, and Marvel has put her on a book that they hope will take advantage of her appeal to young female readers.
PWCW: Where did your interest in comics come from?
Tamora Pierce: I've been a fan of comics since sixth grade, my husband, Tim (who is co-writing White Tigerwith me), for even longer. I read the funnies, I watched Superman on TV—picking up comic books was a natural next step. And unlike the books I read, comic books had girl heroes. Okay, they didn't do a whole lot back then—they'd have psychic power, things like that—but they were called "heroes." I admit, I kept creating fighting girl heroes. I'd send their descriptions to the comics publishers, suggesting they draw them and let me write them! (With no luck, I'm sad to say.)
Then, in the 1970s, I discovered the Daughters of the Dragon, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, in Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu. They were the first female action heroes that made me truly happy in comics (or in prose, for that matter). These were women who could be serious fighters and female at the same time. It took a long time for the prose world to catch up to comics in that respect. Even today, six or seven out of 10 heroes in teen and intermediate fiction are boys, and few of the girl characters are adventure heroes.
PWCW: You're known as a novelist, but did you always want to write comics?
TP: You betcha!
PWCW: How is writing novels different from writing for a comic book publisher?
TP: Writing for comics is more zen. Things I can leave to the reader's imagination in my novels I now have to lay out more. There's also the issue of length. One comic is 22 to 23 pages per issue, and the story has to be resolved by the end of six issues—that's 132 to 138 pages all told. My earliest, shortest novels were 60 pages longer than that, and dialogue and thoughts weren't limited to tiny balloons, nor descriptions to the pictures themselves. On the other hand, a page or more of description can be covered by a single drawing that also conveys a real emotional wallop. We’re hoping that will make up the difference. The whole experience should be instructive.
PWCW: Why the character of the White Tiger?
TP: Short form? Marvel asked me! Longer form: Ruwan Jayatilleke at Marvel Comics [who is now the editor for White Tiger] asked if I’d look at some of Marvel's heroes and see who I'd like to write for. We kicked around several ideas, some which may see the light of day in the future. Then Ruwan told us that Brian Michael Bendis had introduced Angela del Toro—an FBI agent who had somehow gotten the White Tiger amulets—in Daredevil. I knew the original White Tiger, Hector Ayala, from Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu. When Ruwan said that Angela was Hector's niece, I realized that White Tiger was fated to be my project. Tim's been helping me create strong female heroes for years, so he was game, particularly when he saw the artwork!
PWCW: How do you deal with writing a character in a larger universe with its own wide-ranging continuity?
TP: It gets complicated. I can't just pluck a character from some other story and plop them into mine. Our plans to use Misty Knight from the 1970s Daughters of the Dragon went up in smoke when we got the word that Daughters is being revived as its own series (it's out right now, in fact.) Having Daredevil, Angela’s mentor, presently in jail is proving to be unique. You learn to step quickly and adapt from week to week.
PWCW: Why do you think so many novelists and screenwriters are doing comics now?
TP: I would imagine it's for the same reason Tim and I are: we're screaming fanpeople! Given the chance, we'll all give it a try, at least. For the screenwriters, it's not even that much of a change—comics are written in screenplay format, with each shot being a different frame.
PWCW: Do you see authors from other mediums writing for comics creating a new audience for comics and graphic novels?
TP: I would hope so!
PWCW: Writers like Greg Rucka went from novels to writing many continuing series. Do you see yourself doing that?
TP: Right now, I only want to finish this six-book arc—and finish the two books I'm supposed to write this year. If things work out, then writing for comics might be another avenue for Tim or for me, but right now we just want to get White Tiger well and successfully launched. And get those other two books written, because I have another one to write next year! You can see that I want to do White Tiger very badly—she's going to be worth all the maneuvering to get her launched this year!
