@’s by GRIMM FAIRY TALES: THE JUNGLE BOOK
Writer Mark L. Miller!!!
OPTIMOUS DOUCHE (OD): So, I'm sure most fans are like me in the sense that their only exposure to the JUNGLE BOOK property is the Disney version - with Baloo singing Bear (or is it bare) Necessities. I assume that is not what this comic series is based on; can you educate us?
MARK L. MILLER (MLM): I don't want to date myself, but I grew up wearing out the record of the Disney THE JUNGLE BOOK soundtrack, so I can't say that the roots of my original interest in this story doesn't have ties to the animated film. But I'm also a huge fan of Kipling's fables because they really do a great job of mapping out his sense of the laws of the jungle and teaching a lot of heroic morals along the way. It's great inspiration for a jungle hero book. Because of that and my interest in animal stories in general, I flipped when Zenescope green-lighted my pitch. Since then I've also watched a couple of other film versions of THE JUNGLE BOOK, not to so much get ideas, but to make sure my story was my own take and not something exactly like what's been done before.And this IS a different take on the story. First and foremost, because this is Zenescope, known for its hot action babes, Mowgli has been changed to Mowglii, the wolf girl. I recently saw Lucky McKee's THE WOMAN (super-awesome movie by the way) and the idea of a feral girl fascinated me. That shift alone was enough of a change, but also I wanted to broaden the scope of the story to focus on something we're calling the Great Animal Battle, which is basically a fight for who rules the jungle. I thought armies of animals fighting each other was a cool concept. After the scope of that was made, I decided that Mowglii would not be the only human on the jungle island of Kipling. In our version she would arrive on the island with three other humans as a child and the quartet would be raised by different animal tribes.
OD: How do you write a feral woman as opposed to a feral boy? Take away logic and reason and add a period?MLM: Hah! No, in many ways it opens things up for a broader story. Look at other species in nature. The female is always more fierce, more protective and more willing to sacrifice for those she cares for. I tried to imbue those aspects into this Mowglii.
OD: Can you describe some of the animals that will be battling in this Great War?
MLM: There are basically five species involved; wolves, tigers, monkeys, elephants, and mongoose/meerkats. Though you wouldn't think a monkey would fare well against a tiger, it has agility on it side. Same with the meek creatures such as meerkats; that species has sheer number on its side. Being a huge fan of Animal Planet and Discovery Channel documentaries helps me come up with different methods they use in warfare.
On top of the species, you have lone animals that fans of the original JUNGLE BOOK will be familiar with. Kaa the python shows up, as does Balloo the bear and Bagheera the panther. All have their roles to play in the battle, favoring one side or another for their own reasons.OD: How do the factions differ from a personality perspective, not just combat?
MLM: I'm not going too much against the archetypes Kipling set up in the book. No one is innocent in war; some just go about war in dirtier ways. The wolves are definitely the most noble, but ferocious. The tigers are conniving, deadly and sneaky. Elephants are proud. The monkeys are these agents of chaos who side with no one and make little sense in their actions, while the meerkats are small and somewhat meek alone, but mighty in number and want to bring respect to the small things in the forest so their number is a hodgepodge of species. Each human child has these traits as they grow up in their respective tribe.
OD: How much anthropomorphism are you leveraging from both a story and art perspective?
MLM: Good question. The animals and the humans communicate, but since Mowglii and the other children arrived before they could talk, I'm thinking they learned the language of the jungle. More will be revealed about this if they let me do more series, but since everything happens on the island in this miniseries, all of the animals are speaking the same jungle-speak.We toyed with the idea that the animals would be wearing armor and use weapons and such early on. But in the end we thought it best to keep them as close to the real thing as possible. The monkeys of Bandar Log are the exception. Their look is especially distinct. They show up in issue three as Mowglii finds out a bit about where she came from.
OD: You said "we" in the last question; who are your collaborators?
MLM: Well, I've been in contact with Zenescope editorial the whole time while developing the script, mostly Raven Gregory who is serving as editor of the book. Basically, I write the script and he helps make the script and art process work together.
Raven is also a great sounding board for ideas, which I value greatly because sometimes you need to bounce ideas off of someone to see if they work or not. I was non-specific about certain looks to give the artist a chance to have fun and get creative with the looks of the characters. There are instances where I had specific details for the characters, such as Bomani having scars and war-paint to make him feel like he has tiger stripes in order for him to feel like he fits into the tiger tribe better, but I wasn't specific on the animals. I thought it best to go for the straight up animal look. The artist did a few sketches of the animals in armor, but they just didn't look right, so we went with the unarmored animals, which I think was a good decision in the end.OD: Very cool stuff, Mark. So let's end things on the particulars. When does the book launch, and will it be an ongoing or a miniseries?
MLM: Plans right now have THE JUNGLE BOOK as a five issue miniseries. If it's popular enough and if enough folks order it, I have many stories planned--possibly a trilogy of miniseries, or maybe even more. But it all depends on whether or not folks take to it. So hopefully stores and folks will order a lot of them. THE JUNGLE BOOK #1 is in this month's Previews and will be coming out in March (with the rest of the issues coming out monthly afterwards). It's definitely the best stuff I've written and it’s drawn by an extremely talented artist. If you're interested, tell your comic book store to order the book for you. Otherwise, the terrorists win.
OD: GRIMM FAIRY TALES: THE JUNGLE BOOK is available for pre-order now in Previews and will be available in March 2012!Optimous has successfully blackmailed fellow @$$Hole BottleImp into being his artist on Average Joe. Look for Imp's forced labor on Optimous brain child in mid-2012 from COM.X. Friend Optimous on FaceBook to get Average Joe updates and because ceiling cat says it's the right thing to do.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
