Beasts of Burden is a four-issue Dark Horse Comics miniseries about the adventures of a group of dogs (and one cat) turned paranormal investigators. Set in and around the neighbourhood of Burden Hill, the series follows these anthropomorphic pets as they investigate a series of supernatural disturbances that threaten their town and very way of life. The pets are guided in their quest by the ‘wise dogs’, a group of elders, with a deep understanding of the occult. The sorts of phenomena that the dogs encounter during the series range from  plagues of cannibal frogs, to a secret society of rats planning to overthrow humanity!

With the fourth and final issue of the series going on release next Wednesday (December 23rd, 2009), Hypergeek presents the first of a two-part interview series with Beasts of Burden creators, Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson.

This first interview is with series writer and creator, Evan Dorkin,  the famed creator of such well-loved series as Milk and Cheese and Dork. We plan to have a follow-up interview with renowned artist Jill Thompson posted soon, but for now, please enjoy Evan’s insightful, if sometimes whimsical, answers to our questions:

• Evan, what was the genesis of this project, and what was your inspiration?

ED: Back in 2003 Scott Allie asked me to contribute to an anthology called The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings. I was game, and needed the work, and thought it would be a cool project to be part of. Scott knew I’d had an interest in doing horror stories but never had a chance to do anything in the genre, so he thought I might have something for him. I didn’t, but I worked up some ideas for a haunted house story, trying to do something that wasn’t so straightforward, because I assumed someone else might be working on a haunted house bit. I tried to do a haunted dollhouse story, but the idea went nowhere. I then thought about a haunted doghouse and the story fell into place fairly quickly and became the story, “Stray”. Consciously and unconsciously it ended up mixing elements from Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Poltergeist, The Excorcist and I’m sure other horror and pulp sources.

• How did Jill Thompson become involved in the project?

ED: I had Jill’s artwork in mind for the story while I was writing it. We’re friends and I’m a fan, and I’m very familiar with her work, especially her Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie books, which she illustrates in watercolor. Anyway, like I said, I wrote the ‘Stray’ script with her style in mind, similar to when a screenwriter writes a character for a specific actor, hoping that’s who’ll they’ll get to work with. I wanted a storybook feel for the comic, and Jill’s watercolors are perfect for that, not to mention the fact that she can draw anything, is especially good with animals, and is simply terrific. I write the stories, but Jill breathes life into them. I can’t see them working with another artist, I consider myself very lucky that she threw in with me on this.

• How would you describe the series to potential fans?

ED: Dogs and cats fighting the supernatural. Sometimes I say it’s dogs and cats fighting the supernatural in a small town. Sometimes I say it’s about man’s inhumanity to comic books. Actually, I have nothing to say to potential fans, the potential fans and I are no longer speaking after all the crap that went down at Comic Con in 1998.

- May I suggest Watership Down meets H.P. Lovecraft… you can have that

ED: Thank you, that’s very kind of you, to give that to me, when we hardly know each other. I feel badly that I didn’t bring something for you, I’m a bad guest, my apologies. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just put it in my desk drawer along with Milo and Otis meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scooby-Doo meets the X-Files and Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein. I have to admit, I don’t get it when people say that last one. There aren’t any animals in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, for one thing. There is a bat, but it’s Dracula turned into a bat, not like, a regular bat. So that doesn’t count. People should stop saying that about our comic book. It just isn’t apt.

• What came first, the title or the setting? Because Beast of Burden is a delicious pun!

ED: The anthology stories never had an overarching title, we didn’t know it was going to be a series, and we never thought of it as a series until we realized we had done three stories, were producing a fourth, and were discussing a mini-series. It was usually referred to as something along the lines of “those cat and dog stories Jill and Evan are doing”, which we realized wouldn’t fly on the cover of a comic book. Nobody was crazy about Beasts of Burden, I still feel like there’s a better title out there somewhere, but nobody could come up with anything short and simple and telling. I’ve grown used to it and people don’t hate it, so it worked out okay. The title came to me while I was working on the last anthology story, in 2006, which is why the name of the town, Burden Hill, appears there for the first time. This is one of the duller paragraphcs I’ve ever put out there, sorry everyone.

• There are a lot of supernatural elements in Beasts of Burden. Is the occult something that interests you? And did you end up doing a lot of research into the supernatural?

ED: I’m interested in those sorts of things in fiction, I’m a big fan of horror movies, horror comics and books. I’m fascinated by cryptozoology and Fortean phenomena, legend, lore, urban legend, all the things that make you wonder about the world and the belief systems that sprout up trying to make sense of it. Having said that, I don’t believe in the supernatural, or have any interest in exploring the “actual” occult or anything like that. I’m just as interested in books and articles that debunk occult phenomena than I am in reading about sightings and seances. Sometimes I wish we had real monsters and phantoms roaming out there, even though they’d scare the crap out of me if I ever encountered anything like that. I think most folks who are into science-fiction and fantasy wish there was something out there, tangible, right now, besides the 9-5 and the everday. Not that life is boring, it’s just that it would be nifty to see a real Loch Ness Monster rear up out of the depths, it would be a nice change of pace.

As far as research goes, I’d have to say yes and no. Yes, in that I have been reading a lot of horror and fantasy fiction while working on the series, and no, in that I’m not sitting up all night, poring over demonology and witchcraft texts. I’m not overly concerned with getting the magic incantations correct, I want them to be consistant and have an inner logic to them, I certainly give it thought, but I’m okay if ithe magic use in the book leans more towards Stan Lee Dr. Strange bullshit and not towards “magick-with-a-k” fantasy fiction that can sometimes read like a D&D rulebook. I don’t want to stop and explain everything. Lovecraft believed you shouldn’t explain anything, but I do think some things need background and grounding, or you might lose narrative credibility and readers. But just as I don’t care to read a thriller that provides endless details about firearms, there’s only so much magic lore and learning I want to see in a narrative, unless it’s crucial to the proceedings. There’s a reason most folks skip the whaling industry material in Moby Dick, not that I condone reading it like that, and not that I’ve actually read it myself. Anyway, I’m not trying to show off my research, I can’t stand that in a script.

That isn’t exactly what you asked about, but that’s where I ended up. Strange how often that happens with me.

• What are the major differences for you when writing for an artist, rather than writing and drawing a project by yourself?

ED: I’m a very nervous writer, I second-guess almost everything and go over things multiple times and pull scripts apart and ruin them and then patch them back together as best as I can. This process becomes even more difficult for me if I’m writing for another artist. I am always afraid that I’m not putting my ideas across clearly, so I often overdo panel descriptions, which, while working with Jill, I have been fighting. She knows what she’s doing, I don’t need to give direction on emotion and character expression unless it’s something we need specifically to make a point. But I’ve been cutting back on panel descriptions, and trying to give Jill more breathing space. She changes things anyway, she adds a lot of business, and at times reworks the storytelling as she sees fit, and it all comes out looking great, so I don’t know why I worry so much. My early experiences writing for others weren’t very happy ones, but in the past few years I’ve become more used to the give and take and I’m learning to relax. It’s all a learning process, making comics with others and by yourself, I never took a class, few people have, relatively. You work through things and find out what works best. When I work for myself I often improvise on the page, some projects don’t require a written script, or a tight script, something like Milk and Cheese sometimes gets done with scribbled notes on the backs of receipts and notebook doodles, that’s the sript. So, obviosuly there’s a major difference.

• The animals in Beasts of Burden are anthropomorphized, but only minimally so, i.e. they don’t talk and wear clothes etc. Are you a fan of tales featuring anthropomorphized animals?

ED: It’s not something I seek out specifically, but sure, there are plenty of stories I’ve enjoyed featuring walking, talking animals. Children’s books like The Wind in the Willows, old animated cartoons filled with the ultra-violence, comic strips like Pogo, comic books like Usagi Yojimbo. Furries are a different story. Can’t understand the furry culture at all.

• You are no stranger to writing for non-human characters. What are the major differences between writing for humans, and animals, or even food stuffs?

ED: The animals in Beasts of Burden obviously can’t do a lot of things human characters can do, they can’t use a cell phone, or drive, or go on the internet to find some handy exposition that moves the plot along. They can’t turn a doorknob. So you have to come up with ways to get around all that. But emotionally-speaking, as personalities, I write them very much in human terms. I try to refer to their animal nature as much as possible without shoving it down the reader’s throats, they talk about their noses far more often than a human would in an adventure book, for example. They stop and scratch and sniff things, the cats are easily distracted and sometimes aren’t paying attention, we try to make the characters recognizable as animals, even while they’re talking and arguing and tracking down ghosts. Obviosuly Jill’s art really sells that, but I try to support it with the dialogue and references to dog and cat behavior. As far as Milk and Cheese goes, I don’t even know if what I do with them counts as writing. They are what they are, they do what they do.

• Are any of the animals in the series based on your own pets, or childhood pets?

ED: The Orphan is based on my cat, Crushinto, or Crushy, as we call him. Holstein, a cat in the supporting cast, is based on a cat Jill had with the same name. The dogs aren’t based on any actual pets, althouhg Jill may have based her designs on actual pets. I’ve never actually owned a dog as an adult. My daughter always asks if we can have a dog, and I’d love to have a dog as a pet, but it’s not in the cards right now. Maybe someday.

• What can we expect in the upcoming issues of Beasts of Burden?

[Please note that I sent these questions to Evan via Dark Horse just before the release of BoB #3, but only got them back about a a week or so ago - but while Evan talks about events coming up in BoB#3, it's a load of nonsense anyway]

ED: The third issue focuses on the Orphan, our main cat character. He and a member of a local cat gang go down into the sewers to try and solve a mystery, and some creepy things happen, and a lot of rats show up, and then Batman shows up and saves them. Unless DC Comics has some sort of problem with that, and I don’t really see why they would, I mean, we’re all fans here, right? Right? So, yeah, Batman shows up and it’s kind of cool. Unless it isn’t and we get a cease and desist letter or soemthing. I don’t know about those things, that’s why Dark Horse has all those lists of people’s names in the back of their comics, editors, assistant editors, and some other people who work there, I’m sure one or two of them are lawyers. Anyway, it’s a fun issue, full of surprises, except for the Batman thing, which I just blew. The fourth issue involves strange goings on in a graveyard with monsters and dead things and blood rituals and some fighting and smashing and all that good, intellectual-type stuff. I didn’t put Batman in this one because I thought it would be pushing it, and besides, I don’t like the way Jill paints Batman, she makes his bat-ears too long, and he looks a little silly, to be honest. Batman shouldn’t look silly, he’s a detective. Anyway, dogs and cats fight the supernatural. That’s pretty much it. In a small town, I might add.

• Are there plans for the series beyond the initial four-issue miniseries? Do you have any further stories planned out in you head?

ED: I have a number of stories planned out and a couple of notebooks filled with material. The series has a definite ending, and I hope we can get to it someday. All of us involved with the book talk as if we’re going to do more stories, but right now there are no plans for anything other than the collected edition. Jill has other work commitments now that she’s finished the art for #4, so, I don’t see anything happening for a while, even if Dark Horse wants to keep going. A lot may ride on how well the collected edition does, while word of mouth has been good, and some folks really seem to like the book, the comic sure as hell didn’t set any sales records. So, we’ll see what happens. I would like to get back to the characters as soon as possible, to be honest. I miss them already.

• Are you working on anything else post-Beasts of Burden?

ED: Actually, no, not really, I’m sorry to say. I’m currently spending most of my time panhandling in various areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn, sometimes taking odd jobs here and there. Which I guess is work, of a sort, but not the kind you mean, I’m assuming. Anyway, it keeps me busy. Unfortunately, the panhandling’s no good out here on Staten Island, which is why I have to commute, which is pretty exhausting. They chase you with baseball bats and even the kids kick you, I mean, little kids, ten and under, it’s amazing. Folks out here are very aggressive and they have absolutely no patience with certain people. I really should move. There is a good soup kitchen out here, though, the Lutheran Church on St. Paul’s Ave on the North Shore. Nice people, very friendly, and they don’t ask a lot of questions, they leave you alone for the most part. I recommend it to any other local cartoonists out there who happen to be in my position. There is a chance I might have some more comics work in the near-future, my agent, who’s also my brother-in-law, god bless him, thinks Bongo might let me do some stuff for the Bart Simpson comic, and there’s been some back and forth with Dark Horse about writing a one-shot for them. Otherwise I’m out there shaking the cup and going back and forth and at night I work on my Great American Graphic Novel, which is going to be an 810 page book about suffering. The days go slowly, but I’ve got my fingers crossed things will pick up. Anyway, thanks for asking, and thanks for your interest in these dog and cat stories Jill and I are doing, it’s appreciated..

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