Marjorie M Liu talks to Project Fanboy

Author Marjorie M Liu, writer of the new Dark Wolverine book and NYWX: No Way Home took the time to speak with James Freeman about comic books and her career as a writer.

James Freeman: So, although you’ve only recently broken into to comic books, you’ve been a professional writer for some time. When did you first start off?

Marjorie M Liu: Professionally, my first book, Tiger Eye, was released in March 2005. Since then I’ve published thirteen novels, and seven novellas. But I’ve been writing forever, long before that initial release. I just finally got lucky in the slush pile -- or, as some say, opportunity met a great deal of hard work.

James Freeman: A lot of your writings, (including NYX) have supernatural and horror elements in them. Were there any particular writers of that style who you admired when you were younger?

Marjorie M Liu: More than I can name, though initially I began with the non-supernatural classics -- Laura Ingalls Wilder, Gene Stratton Porter, and so on. I was, however, always obsessed with magic and other worlds -- and plowed through every book I could find that offered that kind of story. Nothing was too obscure. I’m a voracious reader. You have to be -- you should love words -- if you’re going to write for a living.

James Freeman: Did you read any comic books while growing up?

Marjorie M Liu: I loved the X-Men cartoon, but didn’t actually begin reading comic books until college. I believe I started with the X-Men during Operation: Zero Tolerance, and once I got my first taste, I couldn’t stop.

James Freeman: How exactly did you come across a project like the NYX sequel, and did you find it daunting?

Marjorie M Liu: I wrote the X-Men novel, Dark Mirror, which was my foot in the door -- allowing me the opportunity to introduce myself and say, “Hey, I’m interested in doing more if you ever need a writer.” Three years later, I began working on NYX.

I had read, and loved, the first series while in law school -- and to have the opportunity to continue Kiden’s story (along with Bobby, Tatiana, and Lil’Bro) was exciting, strange, and -- yes -- just a little scary. I wanted to do a good job, as it was my first gig writing a comic book -- and I also wanted to give those characters their proper due.

James Freeman: So you’ve recently been tasked with co-writing the new Dark Wolverine spinoff book with Daniel Way and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli. How did THAT project come about, as it seems pretty big.

Marjorie M Liu: It is big -- and a huge amount of fun -- but the way I came onto the project was rather simple. According to Daniel, he had read my work on NYX -- liked it -- and thought I would be a good fit for the project. I was honored to be asked.

James Freeman: Could you shed some light on how the collaborative process between you and Daniel works?

Marjorie M Liu: We’ve got a very easy-going working relationship that goes generally like this: he outlines and I write the script. But there’s a lot of discussion involved, and we’re always tweaking, brainstorming, throwing ideas at each other. I’ve never had a writing partner before, but I can quite honestly say that this has been a most excellent experience.

James Freeman: You and Daniel have been tasked with writing a Wolverine book in what is probably the character’s biggest year ever. Do you find that to be a little intimidating?

Marjorie M Liu: Not really, no. I’m concerned with telling a good story, and if Daniel and I manage that, then the rest will fall into place.

James Freeman: Now the book stars Daken, Wolverine’s deeply disturbed son and his counterpart on Norman Osborne’s Dark Avengers. You wrote young mutants with serious problems before in your NYX mini. Do you find that writing Daken to be similar to writing the teen mutants from that series, or is he a whole other kind of animal (no pun intended).

Marjorie M Liu: Oh, Daken is completely different. Kiden and her friends were, at their core, normal kids with good hearts. Daken is a psychopath, pure and simple. No way soften it, no warm fuzzy edges. He has a plan -- always, a plan -- and he will use you, kill you, screw you -- or be friends with you -- if it means getting what he wants. He is a master manipulator, and utterly ruthless.

James Freeman: Do you have any info on what we can expect storywise from the first few issues of the book?

Marjorie M Liu: Daken has been in hiding all his life, but now he’s out in the public eye -- not as himself, but as the father he hates -- and he’s going to use the opportunity to live a little. Readers will see this exploration of his freedom in the first few issues -- but they’ll also find themselves privy to Daken’s complex machinations as he attempts to manipulate both Norman Osborn and the Fantastic Four.

James Freeman: Will any familiar characters be showing up to wish Daken well?

Marjorie M Liu: Wish him well? Doubtful. Folks with murder on their minds, on the other hand, might be a more likely possibility.

James Freeman: Darkness Calls, the latest book in your Hunter Kiss series also drops this month. Can you give us the lowdown on that?

Marjorie M Liu: Darkness Calls is the second book in my Hunter Kiss series, which is about a woman who is covered in living tattoos that cover her body during the day -- making her invulnerable, virtually immortal -- and that peel off her skin at night to form her own small, incredibly lethal, demonic army. The plot is a bit complex, but suffice to say, there are alternate worlds involved, time travel, genetic manipulation, crazy psychic barmaids, crazy priests who belong to secret societies, and many references to Bon Jovi. Good times, man.

James Freeman: Any other projects on the horizon?

Marjorie M Liu: I’ve got a story in an anthology coming out at the end of the month, called Huntress. My contribution is a post-apocalyptic tale about a girl who runs a junkyard, and who must go on a journey to save a friend from a sex-crazed demonic biker gang.

And then in August, the ninth book in my Dirk & Steele series hits shelves. It’s a romantic paranormal thriller about a man -- a shape-shifter -- who wakes up after three thousand years of sleep, only discover that everything he knew is gone, but that the war he died for is still on-going between his kind, and another race of shifters.

Folks can learn more at my website: www.marjoriemliu.com