Interview with The Case of the Bleeding Wall Team
The supernatural detective novel, The Case of the Bleeding Wall, was recently adapted into a comic book with Dead Sky Publishing. The paperback collected edition of the brand new hit comics series will be released on May 28, with an impressive creative team behind it.
We have Bram Stoker Award-winning and Edgar Award-winning author Joe R. Lansdale (Hap & Leonard, Bubba Ho Tep) and his daughter, who is not only an author but also a country singer, Kasey Lansdale (Creepshow, Impossible Monsters). The illustrations are done by award-winning artist Daniele Serra (Hellraiser, The Crow) and colorist Tom Napolitano (Swallower of Shades, Joker).
In this interview, Mystery Sequels talks with the team about the upcoming release, the creative process behind the entire project, and all the challenges of adapting a novel into a visual graphic medium.
For readers who are new to the novel, first of all, what is the story about?
Kasey Lansdale:
You have the logline, so I’ll tell you what I think it’s really about… There’s a mentor/mentee relationship with the characters, but in reality, it’s not far off from the dynamic of myself and my dad [Joe R. Lansdale], though clearly fictionalized. But it’s two characters who are in many ways quite different, but in more ways the same, and those commonalities make them so powerful. It’s about wanting more from life than the mundane day-to-day, and being brave enough to seize those opportunities, even if things might be a little, okay a lot, scary.
Joe R. Lansdale:
What she said. Seriously. That nails it.
What inspired you to adapt the bestselling collection into a comic series?
Kasey Lansdale:
Dad and I weren’t done with these characters. We knew they had more stories to tell. Beyond that, we thought people would have fun with them and their adventures, no matter how wacky things might get. Sometimes we come across a strange article or idea and think, there’s only two ‘people’ that would know what to do here, and the story goes from there.
Joe R. Lansdale:
I had this character, Dana Roberts, and I had written a few stories about her in the original stiff style of the old club stories, though in those the protagonist was always male. I backed off on the humor I’m known for and thought I was through writing about her. Kasey then became involved via another story not related to the series, and the character there was Jana. I thought, why not put them together.
This brought the humor in, and it went more smoothly, as Kasey took the lead on the series. It fit her. The names wouldn’t have been Dana and Jana had we known we would collaborate. That causes a bit of confusion. Maybe Dana should start calling her J. D. for Jana Davis. I see Kasey has pretty much told this story already.
How did the collaboration between the four creators start and what was the process of working together?
Kasey Lansdale:
It started with Dad’s character Dana. He had several stories with her before Jana existed. But the stories were stiff and told in a camp-fire way, purposefully, but since that’s not his usual style, he had moved on from the character for a while. On a side note, I edited an anthology some years ago and the story I bought from Dad was a Dana story. Never did I think over a decade later I’d be working in her universe.
Cut to, he and I wrote a story together after Christopher Golden invited us into a ‘duet’ anthology, and the character Jana was born. Dad thought that Jana and Dana needed to meet. I wish Jana had been named Sue, or Betty.
Working with Dani [Daniele Serra] was the next part of this process. I don’t remember the details exactly, but Dani thought it should be a comic. He put together some sketches for us to use to pitch the project concept, a ‘bible’ was built with story possibilities, art, and the rest is history. Dead Sky brought in Tom, and everything clicked into place.
Daniele Serra:
The idea of turning Dana and Jana’s stories into comics dates back many years ago. I’ve always been fascinated by their stories and I’ve always been convinced they had great potential as a comic book, there are all the elements I love to read and I’m happy in the end we managed to produce this story. With Joe and Kasey there has been a working and human relationship for a long time, so I was sure that this adventure together would also go well.
As for Tom, it’s the first time we’ve worked together, but as soon as I saw the test pages I was thrilled with how he interpreted the boards and the rest of the work together went on without problems. I couldn’t wait to see the coloured pages! Generally, I color my own pages so being able to work with Tom was very interesting; my approach was not to weigh down the pages too much and to leave him a creative space, too, and I think it worked well.
It was also my first “digital” experience. I generally work by hand, but in this case I wanted to try my hand at using a graphics tablet. It was a nice experience, strange in some ways; it certainly allows you to shorten working times and make changes more easily. We’ll see if I’ll use this medium again in the future.
Tom Napolitano:
Being primarily known as a letterer there’s limited opportunities to get to stretch out to other aspects of creating comics and I love every aspect of making comics. So when I saw a broad colorist “Help Wanted” post by Dead Sky Publishing, I immediately reached out. DSP had already taken a risk on me drawing interior artwork for A Splatter Western: Swallower of Shades #1 and my hope was that, even with fewer coloring credits, they’d take the risk on me coloring at some point.
When I replied, there wasn’t a project specified and Steve Wands, the editor, vaguely mentioned he had a project where the artist was looking for a “Dave Stewart vibe” with the colors. Quite the tall order already without knowing anything else about the project. But because I wanted it, and having limited coloring experience, I agreed to do a tryout sample with two of the finished inked pages.
This is when I found out the rest of the players on the team and I immediately thought I didn’t really have a chance but it’s good practice and I’d have a few more coloring samples to add to my portfolio.At the time, I still didn’t know the title of the book and I didn’t have any material revealing the plot or even character names or descriptions. But I did some research on Daniele’s artwork and was instantly inspired by his watercolor-like painterly style. With a little bit of a watercolor background myself, I decided that was the way to go. I turned around the sample the next day.
It wasn’t for a couple of months before I found out the team liked what I did and that I’d be the colorist! The sample pages wound up being pages two and three of Issue 1 and besides a few tweaks (I didn’t know Dana needed a white strip of hair) remained virtually the same! From there on, the process was pretty smooth sailing. There’s always tweaks and fixes but from my perspective, we were seamlessly in tune with the creative needs of The Case of the Bleeding Wall.
What were some of the challenges when transforming the novel into a visual medium like a comic book?
Kasey Lansdale:
The hardest part is showing one action per panel. I’ve read in reviews that some people miss the dialogue from the collection, but they don’t understand that with the comic, everything has to be tighter, leaner, because you have one tiny bubble within one tiny box.
And then, you don’t realize how much is already packed into one line until you start to break it down. That was the eye opener for me. I realized that some of the prose was so lean, and looked so effortless (I’m going to say that’s Dad’s portion) that you don’t realize how much is really going on there until you strip it down. That was when I realized, oh shit. He’s really good. He told all that in one line, or a few words, and I had to strip it out and put that in the panel and make sure I was still packing the same punch.
Joe R. Lansdale:
Like film, you lose a lot, but due to images you can actually see, you gain a lot. You have to think about a script that constantly sets up visuals. You can’t say, ‘Well, Dana is thinking this’…not unless it’s through dialogue or a character explains it. If it’s a complex idea, it can just become two talking heads on a page.
Daniele Serra:
I think the initial challenge was to give the right look and moves to the main characters; I wanted them to be fresh, credible and interesting. The ink is characterized by a few lines and many blacks, the challenge was to try to do something dark but still in line with the story that has even humorous traits. For the rest I was in my comfort zone, because the story has all the elements I love to read in a comic book, so I had a lot of fun. I think the biggest challenge turned out to be to draw the monster–it was a bit complicated.
Tom Napolitano:
Besides getting the palette right for the key characters (I forgot that darn white strip of hair more than a few times), I wasn’t personally faced with too many challenges in this respect.
There were a handful of changes where certain details needed to be addressed and redrawn to marry with the novel’s universe better. I took on a few of these redraws to keep Daniele from reversing his momentum while working on further pages. Specific example was about a dozen panels where we had Dana using a can of soda in Issue 1 and it needed to be changed to a bottle of soda. I went back and drew in the soda bottle for those panels.
How did you decide which elements of the story collection to include in the comic book?
Kasey Lansdale:
I think I looked at the comic as a chance to do the stories over. The nugget of the stories are there, but now I know these characters so much better, and on a different level than I did when we first wrote the story that this particular comic is based on. (Keep in mind there are multiple stories in the collection.)
I also felt more confident to stray a bit from the original story line and just have fun with it. There’s a scene with balloon animals that wasn’t in the original and it’s one of my favorite moments because it’s so goofy in the midst of a really tense moment. Steve from Dead Sky actually had to say, ‘Okay, this is going too wild, reel it back,’ but I think it’s a perfect example of getting something that’s almost off the nut, still scary, and fun–and a little different than the original. That way for those who enjoyed the book, they get some fresh moments too.
Joe R. Lansdale:
It’s a collection, not a novel, so that presents unique challenges. The readers don’t know the whole relationship in the stories until you read them, but in the comic we have to pull them in right away, hit some backstory, and roll. Comics are a unique form of storytelling. They were what led me to wanting to write. I wanted to tell stories in comics as a child. Eventually, I did, but I got the chance to tell stories in various and unique ways.
Did changing the format from a novel to a graphic format impact the storytelling approach?
Kasey Lansdale:
Absolutely. I touched on this earlier, but it certainly changed how I looked at things. In prose you can meander a lot, and have the internal dialogue and then circle back. In the comic, you have to get the point across as clear as you can, quick as you can. Thank goodness Dani already knew us and the work. There were times we just said something like, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘Crazy monster mash here,’ and we knew Dani would take it and run with it. That’s fun, too, seeing how the artist and colorist interpret the scenes.
Daniele Serra:
I worked on the script already for the comic, so I can say that for me the storytelling in general of this story was sometimes complex because there were action scenes with many characters. And those are the moments when I had the most problems to solve because I generally do not work on action comics so for me it was a challenge, and finding solutions in visual storytelling so that everything was understood and was cool was not easy. But I learned a lot so I’m very happy. My goal was to make the comic dynamic, as the two protagonists are in different ways, I wanted it to be simple in a cool way, but at the same time not to lose the depth of the characterizations. It was a balancing act because the screenplay is a perfect combination of horror, mystery, esotericism, black humor.
Tom Napolitano:
As the colorist, this is where I have a great deal of freedom using color to manipulate the reader’s experience and enhancing the storytelling through visual techniques that generally novels can’t easily tap into. Through desaturating or limiting the palette, I cue the reader in that we are reliving a memory or a flashback. By adding auras around creatures I can pump up the level of supernatural presence or indicate and emphasize a character’s malicious intent. With tone and texture, I can make the atmosphere of a scene more pleasant and open or more dramatic and dangerous as instantaneously as the reader’s eye is able to absorb the information.
After creating this comic, what do you believe are the strengths of telling a story through a comic book compared to a traditional novel?
Kasey Lansdale:
This is my third comic, and Joe’s, what would you say, Dad? Millionth? I think it’s been mostly covered, but you get to the bone of the story and trim the fat. And it’s a good exercise in understanding script writing as well. Ain’t on the page, ain’t on the stage.
Joe R. Lansdale:
I think we have both touched on this already. All I will say is some people just don’t have the comic knack. You have to have a certain way of thinking when you’re writing a comic as opposed to other forms.
What advice would you give to other authors looking to adapt their work into a graphic novel or comic book?
Kasey Lansdale:
Best piece of advice I got from a friend who is an excellent prose and comic book writer was, “is is your friend, and and is your enemy.” In other words. ONE ACTION PER PANEL.
Joe R. Lansdale:
That’s pretty good advice. Think in what can be seen, not what you know.
Where can readers learn more about The Case of the Bleeding Wall?
First of all, the mystery comic book The Case of the Bleeding Wall will be available on Amazon where readers can directly purchase it.
Kasey Lansdale:
You can follow my socials, and on deadskypublishing.com they have the comic featured in a way to learn more. OR, you can grab a copy. ????
Joe R. Lansdale:
Same here.
Dana Roberts, seasoned investigator of the supernormal, is called to Italy by an ex-lover to investigate a strange phenomenon—the mystery of a bleeding wall. She meets Jana Davis at a book signing event, and together they head to Italy in search of answers. Are they dealing with a haunted house? A demon perhaps? Or a vengeful specter from the other side?
Dana has battled angry jinns, malevolent shadows, ancient travelers, and soul-sucking shapeshifters, but in The Case of the Bleeding Wall, she and her new sidekick, Jana, may face their most dangerous challenge yet.
KASEY LANSDALE (Writer/Creator)
Kasey Lansdale is the author of several short stories & novellas from Harper Collins, Titan Books, & others. Her collection, TERROR IS OUR BUSINESS, co-written with her father, was lauded by Publisher’s Weekly as “storytelling that delightfully takes on a lighter and sharper edge.” Lansdale is the editor of assorted anthology collections and her collaboration, THE COMPANION was adapted for the 2019 TV remake of Shudder TV’s, CREEPSHOW. Lansdale’s voice can be heard on numerous audio and VO productions including Stan Lee’s REFLECTIONS, George R.R. Martin’s ACES ABROAD, and George A. Romero’s latest installment, NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, among others. Lansdale is also known as a musician. Her work can be found at all the usual places. She lives in LA with her boyfriend, and some form of poodle doodle.
JOE R. LANSDALE (Writer/Creator)
Joe R. Lansdale is the internationally bestselling author of more than fifty novels, including the popular, long-running Hap and Leonard series. Many of his cult classics have been adapted for television and film, most famously the films Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July and the Hap and Leonard series on Sundance TV and Netflix. Lansdale has written numerous screenplays and teleplays and has won the Edgar Award, ten Stoker Awards, and too many others to list. He has also been designated a World Horror Grandmaster. Lansdale and his wife Karen live in East Texas, like many of the characters he writes about.
DANIELE SERRA (Cover Artist / Artist)
Daniele Serra is an Italian illustrator. Three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award as Best Artist (2012, 2017 & 2021) and finalist at the World Fantasy Award 2021, his work includes covers, internal illustrations and comic adaptations for such highly esteemed authors as Stephen King, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale and Joyce Carol Oates.
His main influences and inspiration come from the world of weird and horror literature from H.P. Lovecraft and William H. Hodgson, Ridley Scott’s films, Japanese horror and the works of Clive Barker.
Through his keen fascination with horror fiction, dating back to before his career started, he soon established his own distinctive style. Playing on striking contrasts between bright colours and darker tones, his work blends curves and shadows to create deeply atmospheric artworks, for the most part using watercolours, as well as Indian ink and charcoal.
As a comic artist he has worked with DC Comics (Pray for Death, by Nicholas Doan), Image Comics (Fade to Black by Jeff Mariotte), BOOM! Studios (Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Bestiary, Vv.Aa.) , Titan Comics (Dark Souls Vv.Aa.), Seraphim INC (Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Anthology Vol. 1-2, Vv.Aa.), SST Publications (I tell you, it’s love, also in Italian for BD Comics under the title Fidati è amore, based on a story by Joe R. Lansdale), Mondadori (Murder Ballads, by Micol Beltramini), Bonelli (Gentleman’s Hotel based on a story by Joe R. Lansdale). He was behind the artwork for all three volumes of Stephen King’s Tommyknockers (PS Publishing). Daniele’s own art book was published by PS Publishing, with an interface by Clive Barker.
He has illustrated more than 300 novel covers released by labels all around the world. Amongst these, certain collaborations stand out, including those with Clive Barker, J. R. Lansdale, Paul Tremblay, Gwendolyn Kiste, Tim Lebbon, Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones and publishers such as PS Publishing, Thunderstorm Books, Dark Region Press, SST Publishing, Cemetery Dance, Buchheim Verlag, Raw Dog Screaming Press, Season of Mist, Fanucci, Solferino, Corbaccio e Sperling and Kupfer.
His work was also used for the scenography of the film adaptation of “Cell” by Stephen King, directed by Tod Williams and starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. He also provided the illustrations for the opening and closing credits for Yoshiki Takahashi’s film, Rageaholic (Kokuei Company).
A musician with a keen interest in music in general, he has also worked on a number of album covers and sleeve designs for bands such as Shining (IX, Season of Mist), :wumpscut: (Madman- Szpital Box, Beton Kopf Media), So Hideous (Laurestine, Prosthetic Records) e Hapax (Exile, Swiss Dark NIghts).
Daniele lives on a Mediterranean island, in his house-studio with his wife, his cats, various exotic insects and a vast collection of horror movies and books.
TOM NAPOLITANO (Colorist)
Tom Napolitano’s balloons and onomatopoeias have appeared in many comics since 2015 for publisher such as DC, Comixology Originals, Dark Horse, Dynamite, Humanoids, Valiant, and Image on titles like Batman: Last Knight on Earth, Wonder Woman Evolution, We Have Demons, Kaya, The Closet and so many more. He’s also appeared as a colorist for Tales of the Nightwatchman and back-up stories in Image’s Savage Dragon. Additionally, his illustrations and artwork have graced the pages of Ahoy Comics, Gravely Unusual Magazine and Dead Sky Publishing.
