Dynamite recently announced the much anticipated comic return of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time®, one of the top best-selling fantasy epics across fiction. Writer Rik Hoskin (Brandon Sanderson’s White Sand, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising) is set to write the adaptation of the iconic second novel, The Great Hunt, centering on fan-favorite protagonist Rand al’Thor, as he and his companions Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara set out to retrieve the legendary Horn of Valere. Marcio Abreu (Red Sonja, Warlord of Mars) is on art for the series.
Hoskin, a multi-award-winning writer of novels, graphic novels, video games, and animation, chatted with us about adapting the tale.
Deanna Destito: What interested you in taking on The Wheel Of Time Universe?
Rik Hoskin: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is such a huge universe to step into, and so well-respected, that I couldn’t really say no! It meant working not only within the framework of a great story with heroic characters but also working with editors I’ve known at Dynamite for a long time and with whom I’ve always enjoyed collaborating.
Destito: Were you a big fan of epic fantasy prior to this?
Hoskin: It’s hard not to be aware of Jordan’s Wheel of Time; it’s a tentpole franchise in the genre. I was a big reader of fantasy from when I was younger, especially Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion cycle and the gothic decadence of Tanith Lee. Robert Jordan first came on my radar as a writer on the expanded Conan novels, however long ago that was.
Destito: How do you approach adapting a work like this to keep it true to the original while adding your own take on it?
Hoskin: I want to be as faithful as I can to the source material, but I also have in my mind that the comics format has different demands and our readers expect different things. I don’t think of it as my own take so much as being sympathetic to the material and conscious of what we can bring to it in the comics medium.
Destito: How has it been working with the creative team?
Hoskin: Dynamite always finds me great artists, in this case Marcio Abreu who’s doing an exceptional job with what I think is a very demanding script. The color work and lettering have been fantastic too–I’ll often include pointers in my scripts for those aspects, and the team is knocking everything out of the park every single time I see a new page.
Destito: What was the most challenging part for you? The most rewarding?
Hoskin: The Wheel of Time is a mammoth endeavor, and it’s a challenge coming to grips with that, and keeping it all in order. But we have some very nice people at Tor Books and the Jordan Estate who are doing exceptional work behind the scenes, providing all the backup I need. Comics are a collaboration, and it’s been very rewarding to have so much support and enthusiasm from everyone concerned.
Destito: Favorite character and/or scene?
Hoskin: I like Rand; he’s a reluctant hero, but he has a good heart and is driven to do the right thing, even though it terrifies him. I think we can all sympathize with that.
As for my favorite scene, I really enjoyed writing the first issue, which covers the prologue for this book. It features this “ultimate evil” and it was fun to find an approach that made it feel terrifying and overwhelming, as such an evil should. I actually wrote two drafts on this before I showed anything to my editors because I wanted to get a certain feel across. Then, when I saw Marcio’s art for the issue, he’d taken it up another notch, which was terrific.
The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt debuts in November.
