Paul Tobin, writer of KING: Jungle Jim #4, talks with writer Roger Langridge about KING: Mandrake the Magician #2, both on sale June 17th!
PAUL TOBIN: If you could cast spells / illusions in the manner of Mandrake, would you be a force for good, or... EVIL? (Or a force for neutrality, I guess, but that doesn't sound very dramatic.)
ROGER LANGRIDGE: We'd all like to think we'd be a force for good, wouldn't we? But that's the thing: in everybody's own internal narrative, they're always the good guy. The things you do are "good" because it's you doing them. Nobody actually thinks of themselves as evil. So as much as I like to think I'd be a force for good, I'd probably make a massive pig's ear of everything.
PAUL TOBIN: Who would you say are history's greatest magicians (or at least your favorites) both in fictional terms, and in supposedly "real" terms.
ROGER LANGRIDGE: "Real" magicians: Houdini was a fascinating character, particularly in his later life when he went around exposing fraudulent spiritualists. There's a series right there! Tommy Cooper is a comedy hero – a conjurer who seemed to be absolutely, hilariously terrible at his job, in the way that only a very, very good conjurer can appear terrible and not hurt himself rather badly. I suppose Jesus should get a mention as a "real" magician. I'd include the quotes, though I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't. In terms of making an impact on world history, though, they don't come much bigger. And that "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" thing never gets old.
Fictional: Zatanna, at least the original version (I'm not sure where she's at these days). Ditko-era Doctor Strange is amazing. Doctor Fate was great for about five minutes in the 1970s and early '80s. I think Terry Pratchett's grand old witch, Granny Weatherwax, is one of fiction's truly great creations – her "witch magic/wizard magic" distinction, and the way her magic always came with a price, were a big influence on my approach to Mandrake.
PAUL TOBIN: How true to the Mandrake mythos do you feel you need to be, or are you comfortable cutting loose and devising your own version of the character?
ROGER LANGRIDGE: Mandrake's a tricky one, because he has an ardent following who, like a lot of newspaper strip readers, are basically conservative by nature and are suspicious of change for change's sake. That, combined with the fact that he doesn't have the kind of name recognition a character like Flash Gordon does, means that I have to be careful not to alienate the existing fanbase if we want to ensure decent sales... while, at the same time, I don't want Mandrake to seem to be preserved in aspic to the extent that no new readers will want to try the book out either. So it's been a bit of a balancing act. My basic approach has been to try and freshen things up with a new look at some essential aspects of the character, but to go out of my way not to deliberately contradict anything in the newspaper strip (while simultaneously ensuring that none of that knowledge is essential for new readers).
As I say – balancing act.
If left to my own devices I would have made the friendship between Mandrake and Lothar much more front-and-center, but Lothar was otherwise occupied in The Phantom, so I relied on Lothar's longtime girlfriend Karma to a larger extent than I initially would have. That seemed to work out okay, and possibly made the book seem more of a departure from the strip and more of our own thing, which is maybe all to the good. Hopefully that wasn't too much of a radical departure from the status quo for Mandrake's longtime fans; this Karma is a different take from the newspaper strip Karma, but I've tried to keep her background ambiguous enough that the two versions aren't irreconcilable. I would love to get a chance to explore Mandrake's friendship with Lothar a bit more in the future, though – I really think that's the heart and soul of the whole thing, and something quite special and unique.
PAUL TOBIN: I associate you a lot with your art (I think I own 7 or 8 of your various originals) and I'm curious, when you're acting solely as a writer, do you add any sketches into your scripts to further what you'd like to see?
ROGER LANGRIDGE: I sometimes sketch things out just for my own benefit when I'm writing a page, just to make sure there's at least one way to make the page work, but I don't pass those doodles on to Jeremy Treece, as he seems to be more than capable of making things work without my help. I'd like to think I'm there if he needs me, but so far he hasn't asked, and I'm hesitant to impose my own visual ideas on an artist without specifically being asked to; I've read enough interviews with artists complaining that they don't get enough leeway from writers, or from artists praising writers who do have the sense and/or manners to stand back a bit, to realize that's probably the best way to go.
PAUL TOBIN: And, of course, the most important question: If you woke up tomorrow morning with all of Mandrake's powers, would you wear the top hat?
ROGER LANGRIDGE: I think I'd probably go for a fez. Who doesn't like a fez?
KING: Mandrake the Magician #2 is currently available in stores now! Check out the rest of the preview for this week's issue below!
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