True Blood The Comic: An Interview with Michael McMillian

What follows is an excerpt from that interview. For the full story, just follow the link.

MTV: So when it comes to the comic book series, how much input are you getting from the television team? Are they involved in the comic book creative process?

MCMILLIAN: Yeah, Alan [Ball] is overseeing the entire process from his bloody throne. [Laughs] He reads all the scripts, and read the outline that Marc and I turned in. Before that, he was the one who ultimately selected which story we would do from the group of pitches. It's fun because the comic really does feel like an extension of the show, which is terrific. Marc and I have made it our goal to have it feel just like that. We want the audience to pick up the comic and feel like they're getting a little extra show while they wait for Season Four.

MTV: You mentioned wanting the comic to feel like an extension of the show. Where does this story arc fit in the overall "True Blood" continuity? Does it have a specific spot in the series timeline?

MCMILLIAN: It's tough because "True Blood" the TV series has such a tight continuity that it was a challenge for Marc and I to figure out where the story would fit in. Ultimately, we have our thoughts as to where this takes place, but you kind of have to go into it both as writers and audience with this sort of loose sense of continuity. I think fans will be able to figure out where it fits in overall, though.

MTV: The first arc of the comic got around that by having everything take place in a single night at Merlotte's. Are you planning something similar for your arc?

MCMILLIAN: We have to keep it kind of loose, because the show is so unpredictable that we can't build too strong of a foundation of "Well, this takes place immediately after Episode 3 of Season 2" and that sort of thing. Most stories in "True Blood" take place over a short amount of time. I think the entire three seasons of the show have only spanned a month and a half of those characters' lives. So it makes sense that the first volume of "True Blood" and this volume take place in a single night. This story will take place in about a 24-hour period.

MTV: So what about the story itself? Why is this the right story to tell at this point in the series?

MCMILLIAN: I think it's cool because the story centers on Tru Blood itself, the bottled blood. Marc and I went into it interested in finding out what areas of the mythology we could build upon that the show would not go into — which I think is a great role for the comic book. [The comic can deal with] how to expand the mythology laterally while the show drives all the characters and the story arc forward. The comic can kind of act as another format for the mythology to expand within.

We thought it would be cool to do a story about contaminated bottles of Tru Blood and what would happen if an ingredient got into bottled blood that made vampires go feral, go crazy, I think that really piqued Alan's interest and IDW's interest because there hasn't been anything like that in the show yet. What's at the heart of the whole mythology is this bottled blood that allows vampires to coexist with humans, so what happens when you take that element and you screw it up? What happens to vampire-human relations at that point?

Those are always my favorite stories of the show, and obviously playing Rev. Newlin I lean that way, but I love the stuff that comes down to the politics of vampires and humans. We wanted to tell a story that would put vampire-human relations at the forefront, and underneath that, all of our human characters are starting to go, "You know, I think life might have been better before all of this stuff started happening to us. I think things might have been better before vampires came into our lives." There's this sense of lost innocence that Sookie and Tara and Jason, and even the vampire characters like Jessica, are sort of longing for. And that's our starting point for Volume 2.