"The reason for that is that I used exactly the same philosophy that I used with the Star Trek comic," Wolfman explained. "I went to one artist who would give it a very straightforward comic book feel. Carmine Infantino is a very good comic book storyteller. Then I went for an inker who's more of an illustrator. So you have the comic book, but then you also have the realism imposed upon it. Usually TV or movie adaptations are done by people who are so concerned with photo realism that every single shot is a swipe. I didn't want that. We're doing comic books. You have to acknowledge the strength of the comic book form in order to make the project last.
"I've tried to be faithful to the general material, but to do a comic book version of it by creating supporting characters of our own that we could play with. Obviously we can't kill the main cast members, although the show itself seems to be doing a very good job of that. With our own characters, we can move them around the way we'd like to, because they're ours as well as follow their characters."
Wolfman had his own goals and directions for the book, though, and it wasn't just to be the comic book version of the same types of stories seen each week on the series. "As far as our goals for the book," he said, "I've asked the writer, Cary Bates, to introduce a main antagonist with a little more comic book style. That's funny, because I made that sugggestion before the TV series, which had the super assassin. That's not exactly the type of assassin we're doing, but it would be one that could continue to come back. We need a heavier antagonist in the comic book -- some physical movement and such. Diana is more scientifically oriented and she can be moving in one direction while this guy is moving in another.
"Other things that we're trying to do are more personal stories," Wolfman added. "We're going to have a story where Donovan and Diana are shackled together. They have to survive alone and work out their relationship in this and it makes for an interesting story."
The comic aso wanted to broaden its horizons to take advantage of the outer space connection. "We have an unlimited budget," Wolfman pointed out. "So we have all of those openings and areas to move in to while trying to keep it sounding like the TV show. One thing we like to do, which is like the TV show, is to bounce back and forth between the various cast members so that you have multiple storylines going on. In one issue we could have three or four diffrent stories going all at the same time."
To Be Continued
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