Veteran comics and film writer, editor and producer Brendan Deneen has a bunch up his sleeves in 2014.He’s reissuing Scatterbrain, his comic book writin debut from 2006, as Devil’s Hopyard on iVerse with art by Spawn artist Szymon Kudranski; his debut novel The Ninth Circle is also available for order, both in print and as an e-book.He’s also got a new graphic novel available for pre-order based on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer‘s Island of Misfit Toys. So…yeah. It’s a busy year.Deneen joined ComicBook.com to discuss his various projects.Devil’s Hopyard really holds up, and Szymon’s art is great. Will it be available digitally sometime soon?Thanks, Russell. Yes, I believe issue #1 is currently available over at iVerse.Why the title change? The original seems more in the vein of what’s “hip” in comics at the moment; it may be less representative of the acutal content, but the one-word, vague title thing is kind of in. See also: Saga, Revival, Clone, OutcastRich Emms and I discussed this at length. Ironically, Scatterbrain isn’t the star of this story. It’s Jack Anderfold (the cop) and the city of Devil’s Hopyard itself. We liked the idea of pulling the focus away from a superhero who actually barely appears in the first issue, let alone the whole mini-series.Is The Ninth Circle coming out through an imprint of Macmillain or did you stray from your day job to find it a home?Permuted Press published The Ninth Circle and I couldn’t be happier. They put together an amazing cover and have been really great about getting the word out about my debut novel.You’ve got a pull quote on the cover from Jay Bonansinga. What’s it like working with he and Kirkman on the Walking Dead novels?It’s been amazing. I was one of the first (if not THE first) people to reach out to Kirkman back in 2003 about film/TV rights to The Walking Dead. I was working at Dimension Films as a development executive. I stayed in touch with Robert for years and when I landed at Macmillan and knew the first season of the show was in production, I figured a book series could be a good idea. I had no idea how huge the TV show would prove to be….Has it been instructive working with other novelists, in terms of giving you more of an idea of process when writing a non-comics novel?I’ve been working in film/publishing for fifteen years and yes, it’s been hugely instructive working with novelists and screenwriters. I have learned what to do and what not to do in a big way, and also how the industries work as a whole.
