Mad Science: An Interview With Phil Foglio
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What prompted you to write a prose version of the Agatha H. narrative?
Phil Folio: Okay, you know how things are usually done; someone writes a novel that people enjoy and it gets adapted into a comic. In order to do this, the story has to be stripped of a lot of stuff. Inner narrative. World-building. Personal histories. All good stuff. Stuff the readers like, but if you don't take it out it would result in a comic that ran two thousand pages long.
Well we did it backwards. We did the comic first. But when we wrote the thing, we already had a lot of that background information and world–building, but couldn't use it. So we realized that if we wanted people to know about it (and readers are always asking us about this kind of stuff), a novel was the best way to do it.
How much difference is there, plot, character and setting wise, between the prose and the comics?
Phil Folio: We actually hewed pretty closely to the plot of the comic, because we're still pretty happy with it. However, there were one or two things that we subsequently wished we had done differently, so we did it. Our conceit here is that since we are but humble historians researching the early life of Agatha Heterodyne, any changes in the story merely reflect newly unearthed information. We also added a few scenes that we had really wanted to put in the comic, but for one reason or another got left out.
What kind of reaction have you been getting to the prose novel?
Phil Folio: Overall, extremely positive! We don't really entertain the notion that we're fabulous prose–stylists, but we've been pleased at how people say that it's engaging and very readable. The best reviews are those from people who say, "I never read Girl Genius because I'm not into comics, but I thought I'd try it now that it's a prose book, and it's pretty damn entertaining." Yay!
Even the worst reviews we've seen say, "It's not as good as the comics because it doesn't have all that great art." We can live with that.
Tell us about what happened with the on sale bomb, and reaching #17 on Amazon.com.
Phil Folio: We exhorted our readers to make a concentrated effort to order the book on one specific day (January 12, Kaja's birthday, as it so happens) in order to make a bit of a splash. Well, as you say, we hit # 17, and probably would have done even better, except that Amazon sold out, and people were being told that the book wouldn't be available for over a month. It wasn't even Amazon's fault. According to the folks at Night Shade Press (our beloved publishers), Amazon pre–ordered pretty heavily. Everyone did. Night Shade printed heavy to begin with, and they sold out before January 12.
Thus I would say that we accomplished our goal, and made a nice splash.
What are your feelings about the steam punk subgenre? Agatha H. fits firmly in that genre, but your comic and the concept preceded the current steam punk craze by some time.
Phil Folio: We love steam punk! The design esthetic, the clothing, the way it ties in with and has been embraced by the Maker and D.I.Y. subcultures. We've always loved this kind of stuff (as anyone who has ever visited our house can tell you), and now it's easier than ever for us to find it. As for Girl Genius, whereas in many ways it is indistinguishable from steam punk, we've always called it 'Gaslamp Fantasy.' Firstly, because we acknowledge that there are several fantastical elements to the story, and secondly, because there are some people who have very rigid ideas about what does and what does not constitute steam punk, and we don't want to argue with people like that because life is short.
Technically, one has to say that over the years there have been several "waves" of what we call steam punk. It is certainly accurate to say that we preceded the current wave, which has proved larger, stronger and much more enduring, for a number of fascinating reasons that we certainly don't need to go into here.
We recently took part in a round–table discussion about the steam punk genre, and James Carrott, the historian running the thing, made an interesting point. He said that the latest spike in the public's awareness of 'steam punk,' the one that signaled the beginning of the latest wave, clearly started in 2005. (Apparently they can chart this sort of public awareness demographic by analyzing historic records of Google keyword searches. Neat, eh?) So they were trying to determine what event in 2005 triggered this upsurge. We claim nothing, but will merely point out that 2005 is when we put Girl Genius online.
In your career, you’ve co-founded two independent comic book publishing companies, Palliard Press and now Studio Foglio, LLC. You already had experience working in the comics industry. How did that experience prepare you for publishing?
Phil Folio: Well, we were able to talk somewhat knowledgeably with our publishers about distribution, pre–orders and returns, which I think creeped them out a bit. We're able to make reasonable suggestions about publicity, advertising and which conventions it would be best to have a presence at.
What it didn't prepare us for was the incredibly weird sensation of having stuff come out that we didn't have to pay the printer for. But I'll bet we'll get used to it.
How is working with Night Shade Press, a book publisher, different from working with comic book publishers?
Phil Folio: We're really the wrong people to ask, since we haven't worked with another publisher for close to twenty years now. I will say that it's nice to talk to people who feel really upbeat and unabashedly proud about what they're doing.
In Girl Genius, the “Spark” is an inherent ability in certain gifted individuals, which sends them into a temporary state of madness coupled with extreme ingenuity and enables them to create devices—using science—that seem to defy the laws of physics. Is this similar to an inherent magical ability and does it constitute a sort of magical system for the world of Girl Genius? If so, do you enjoy this sort of world building for your stories?
Phil Folio: Two part question! In answer to the first, yes, it is a form of poorly–defined magic. There just is no way that anyone could build what these people do, in the amount of time we say they can, and have it work as well as it does. It's mad science with the emphasis on the mad. That's one of the reasons Kaja came up with the label Gaslamp Fantasy.
As for world building, that's one of our favorite parts of this job. Normally we just get to lie to our children about the Easter Bunny and the hungry goblin that lives in the garbage disposal. This way we get to lie to thousands of people and get paid for it. What's not to like?
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