TrekMovie had some very nice things to say about my story in Star Trek: The Manga:
Wil Wheaton skipped the easy Wesley Crusher story (are there any other kind?) to pen a TOS tale for Tokyopop’s second Star Trek: The Manga collection that debuted last year, and it’s easily one of the best in the book. Drawn by E.J. Su, recently of IDW’s Transformers comics —official non-Trek plug accomplished!— Wheaton’s “Cura Te Ipsum” (Latin for “heal thyself”) tackles a Kirk vs. the Prime Directive tale with surprising skill, and establishes his cred as a comics creator well beyond his celebrated cult of geek.
Uhm. Wow. Thanks! I was scared to death the entire time I worked on it, but I had a lot of help from Andrew, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, myself.
I was at Trekmovie yesterday, reading this great editorial by Andre Bormanis, and I would have missed the review if reader T hadn't pointed it out to me. Thanks, T!
Speaking of the manga, I'm was lucky enough to work with E.J. Su again on the next one, and he sent in his pencils yesterday. I wish I could show just a little bit of them, because even though it's only pencils, it's absolutely magnificent. Once again, he took my descriptions and turned them into something cinematic, while capturing all the emotional weight of the story. Tokyopop plans to release this one, called "Aratanaru Michi He", in summer, so we can have it available during the big summer convention season. I didn't think I could reveal any details about the story, but I see that my editor, Luis, told Trekmovie pretty much the same thing I'd say if I had permission:
The story, "Art of War" shows Kirk dealing with his hatred of Klingons, but for the first time sympathizing too (foreshadowing the peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingons).
Writing scenes between Kirk and a Klingon commander was as much of a thrill as it was a challenge. I knew that I was taking a huge risk with the story, and it was going to live or die based upon how these two guys interacted. I had this awesome and unexpected Writer moment while working on a scene between them, when I just got out of the way and let the characters talk to me. I know it sounds very "ooga booga" but I felt, for the first time in my life as a capital-W writer, like I was transcribing something real, rather than making something up. It was kind of a big deal for me.
This time around, we got 10 more pages to work with than volume two, so I was able to make the story richer than last time without sacrificing any action. In fact, I deliberately put more action into this story, so it would be more of a traditional manga than my last one. In fact, I told Luis, "I want to bring manga to Star Trek this time, since I brought Star Trek to manga last time."
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense now, either, but it made sense in my head when I said it. Having drinks with your editor rules.
