V.E. Schwab has made quite the name for herself as an author, especially in the fantasy genre. From The Shades of Magic series to The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, Schwab has found great success in this genre, even becoming a New York Times Best Selling Author. Following her success in prose, Schwab brought her fictional works in the world of comics, with spin-off series for The Shades of Magic series, as well as her latest graphic novel, ExtraOrdinary.
ExtraOrdinary focuses on events that connect to the Villains series, but this graphic novel also works as a standalone tale. ExtraOrdinary follows Charlotte, an EO on the run from another EO who wants to kill her. Schwab took the time to talk to CBR about this graphic novel and what it was like to expand her fiction within the comic medium.
CBR: You already have a very impressive catalog of prose fiction, so what made you want to continue the story of the Villains series in a comic format?
V.E. Schwab: I think there are pros and cons to every medium. I think it's really interesting. Novels, obviously, have this expansion of space and a real lack of limitations, but it's also incredibly lonely. It's a very solitary job. I try to write very cinematic stories, so every time I have a chance, it's fun to explore what my world looks like in a new medium.
In addition to loving comics, I get to have a partner in crime. I get to have an artist who can interpret and add entirely new layers and depth to my work. It's really cool to see almost a visual codification of something that only ever exists in my head. Plus, it's like having professionally commissioned fan art for my own world.
Some stories lend themselves better to a shorter medium. I know when I was doing my first comic, Steel Prince, I was writing those Shades of Magic fantasy novels. I knew that those novels were going to continue forward in time, and there was a backstory that I really wanted to tell, so sometimes shorter narratives, or capsule narratives that could work as a novella, I like to explore them in a comic format.
Speaking about your partner in crime, Enid Balám, what was that collaborative process like?
It's amazing. I work really hard to make sure that my artists have creative flexibility and freedom because just as prose is my expertise, I know the visual medium is theirs. The last thing I want to do is be prohibitive in being prescriptive. While there are some moments in the comic that I have a very strong idea of what I need it to look like, I know what my artist strengths are. For Enid, it's his dynamism, his movement, the way he structures the page. I try to make sure that I build in as much freedom for him, so I give him a list of what needs to be included in each shot, but I don't prescribe always the angles of it or exactly what I want it to look like.
That's a comfort level that's grown over the course of the issues, so the first issue becomes kind of a proving ground to see how much information I need to give to feel comfortable. It was very clear very early with Enid that I love working with this guy. I know that he can handle scenes and find better solutions than I would be able to dictate, so when I'm able, whenever the story allows, I try to give him as much creative freedom as possible on how to convey a specific idea.
Looking at the powers in this graphic novel, specifically how they're illustrated and visually come to life, what are you most excited to see Enid bring to life when it came to the powers specifically?
Enid has the amazing challenge in that the main character of this comic has the ability to see other people's deaths on reflective surfaces. I knew from the beginning that was going to be a really fun challenge. I'm glad that he had to do it and not me because every time there was any ability to put a reflective surface into a panel, he then had to do extra work to create a secondary set of images to go inside the reflections. So I loved it. I'm sure it was a nightmare for him, but I was really excited to see how he could render in a way that wasn't confusing but still maintained kind of a visual hierarchy, and yet added a second narrative and easter eggs onto each page.
Speaking of our main character, Charlotte, we meet so many different EOs. What made her the best character to be the protagonist of this story specifically?
It's interesting because there's Charlotte, and there's her power. They obviously come together in this narrative, but they started out as completely separate entities. The power that she possesses -- the ability to see death in reflective surfaces -- is the very first power I ever designed for this. It actually belonged to who was going to be the main character of the novel when I was first thinking up the storyline for Vicious. I ended up going in a really different direction for the novel, so I didn't need that character or their ability anymore. I let go of the character, but I couldn't shake that ability anymore. I was so excited by it.
Because in my world, in the world of the Villains series and the comic, the superpower is not arbitrary. It's not random. It's the result of a specific circumstance and a specific thought pattern at the time of that circumstance. I love this idea of somebody being in a moving vehicle. Originally, it was a train. Now it's a bus, and seeing that weird visual dissonance that happens when you can see the world beyond the glass moving and the world inside the glass not moving. I knew I wanted to keep this power and find a use for it, and then when it came time to do the comic, I knew I wanted to do a teenage girl protagonist because the books mostly follow adults. It was really exciting to give her this ability because I thought that will surely traumatize her. This is a traumatic power anyway. I feel like teens are already going through so much that I couldn't resist layering this on top of it.
Looking at her powers, as well as the powers overall, as Eli mentions, he has his own theory about why EOs get the powers that they have. For you, what was the main reason for the powers featured in this graphic novel, and who they're assigned to?
We've got Marshall, who's kind of got this supercomputer ability inside his head, and you've got Felix, who has electricity, which is a very classic ability, but I was trying to find really unique ways to use it. Then you've got Felix and their partner, who has probably my favorite ability that would never work in a TV show because it would be too expensive, which is the ability to change one element into another element.
I've searched for ways to create interesting dynamics, so I try to look at how powers function for an individual person and how they function in a team. Felix and Marshall have powers that complement each other. He needs electricity to be able to kind of overtake the system. Felix has the ability to override and to kind of create these surges, as well as not power out. Then once they get into Aeon, then Felix's girlfriend's power really helps with the escape from the situation. I try never to make somebody too powerful. There always has to be checks and balances, but I really do try and create powers that fit personalities.
Speaking of Felix and Mia, we get brief glimpses of their dynamic in this graphic novel. What about their relationship appeals to you? What would you like to explore more with the two of them?
It's an unconventional relationship. Felix is non-binary, and their partner is femme -- female-presenting. I like that it's not an issue. That was one of the most important things. I try very hard in my work, whether it's novels or TV shows, or comics, to do what I call a queer existence narrative because I didn't come out as a teenager. I came out as an adult, so I don't really need a coming out story, but what I really do need persistently is queer existence stories.
I just want to see queer characters taking up space on the page, where their gender and sexuality are not plot points. The only reason for their inclusion so often in stories is because of the trauma of who they are. I don't want to capitalize on that trauma. I want to just allow them to take up space. In that way, Felix and Mia are really exciting characters for me because it's just the inclusion. Their gender and sexuality presentations have nothing to do with this story, but they're still completely valid and their story is still completely relevant.
Over the course of the book, we meet several of the EOs -- we've talked about some of them here. Was there a favorite of yours to write, and if so, which character and why?
Obviously, Charlotte, just because it's such a disastrous power, and it comes back to I try to explore death in all of my books. One of the things that go hand in hand with death is fate. Do we have power over it? Obviously, there are powers in the comics and in the books, but do we have power over our own destiny, over fate?
These characters have exerted a measure of control because they've seen death and come back from it and gain some power over it, but Charlotte has kind of a philosophical quandary that goes with her power, which is, "Can you change the nature of a person's death?" Even if you could, she could make a change that would actually mean somebody dies sooner. She can change the nature of the death, but she can't put it off forever. Even if she sees a death, and she turned one death into another, it doesn't erase death from the narrative, so it really becomes a question that I'm hoping to get to explore more on the third Villains novel, because I'm hoping these characters will come back.
This is their introduction. I'm not done with them, though, as the last pages of the comic kind of promise. I always look at the philosophical quandary of each of the powers. With Charlotte, if you as the reader had that power, what would you do with it? Would you try and ignore the world around you? Would you just avoid reflective surfaces? Or would you take a combative approach and try and protect everyone around you? And to what extent can you do that? At the end of the day, it's that butterfly effect. Charlotte is directly engaging with the butterfly effect every time she tries to make a change in the lives around her.
Touching on what you brought up about continuing this with the third novel, what challenges did you face in making this accessible to people who may have not read those books, and vice versa? What challenges did you anticipate trying to connect this to the other prose novels, since these are different media?
It's really a huge challenge because I do want the comics to be entry points, not just additives. I want readers to be able to join in at the comics, and in that way, the zero issues of the comic had to be a primer for the world-building. I had to explain to the comic reader how the powers worked in this world. What is this EO system that we're talking about in a way that obviously I've already explained in the novel.
Eli's an important part of this comic, but one of the reasons I chose as a new protagonist, something that is largely disentangled from the characters and the storylines of the novel, is so that it would be an easier entry point. I think that readers who have read the books, even if they've only read Vicious, but especially if they've read Vicious and Vengeful, there will be some easter eggs, some things that stand out to them, that a reader who hasn't read the novels won't necessarily pick up on. Those are mostly around Victor and Eli.
I did try very hard to kind of make this feel like a capsule narrative because one thing that I love about working in the Villains world is that because I designed the method of superpower acquisitions first, it means I can kind of repopulate my world as needed. I can create new storylines for new characters that still fit into the world because the world that I designed doesn't revolve around one character. It revolves around the type of power.
Speaking about the super-powered individuals in this, in the comic medium, the superhero genre is highly saturated. What makes us ExtraOrdinary and its super-powered people stand out amongst the literally hundreds of other superpower stories that we have right now?
I think it's two-fold. I think one is that the powers aren't random. I've always been perplexed by the vat of acid theory, where you fall into a vat of acid and then you come out with x power, y power. I prefer a more psychologically grounded approach to the developing powers, which are a direct reflection of our environment and our mindset.
I would say that the way that the powers develop, the fact that everyone's origin story is a death story and a rebirth story in that way, but they don't come back as fundamentally different people. They just come back changed by that experience in fundamentally different ways. So there's that, and then I also think this is a story about superpowers, but it's not a story about superheroes.
There are no capes. There's no bombastic quality to it. I tried to make a superpower narrative, in both books and the comic, that's really grounded, that really is about real people in the world. The whole series is posited on this idea that if you give a person superpowers, they don't become a superhero. They just become a person with powers, and how that changes us because there's no inherent moral imperative. You don't get superpowers and wake up the next day a Superman. You wake up with the same problems that you had before, except these problems are now augmented, and so are your reactions to them.
I always use an example from the book. There's a character in the book called Marcela, and essentially where someone else would key their ex's car, Marcela has the ability to turn anything she touches to ash, so obviously, her reactions to someone pissing her off might be a little bit larger than they were before. At their heart, all the problems between characters are problems between people. There's no world domination goal. There's no saving the universe goal. These are just individuals with jealousy and anger and resentment and really personal beef.
Between ExtraOrdinary, as well as the short story you include in the graphic novel, "Warm Up," it seems like there is still so much to explore in the Villains universe. What else would you like to expand on, whether in the prose format or in the comics medium?
The most exciting thing about it is I can develop new characters, and every person's experience of becoming an EO leads to a different story. I'm mostly interested in how those stories either tangentially or directly impact Victor and Eli, the central characters of the novels. While I'd love to do a couple more spin-off, capsule stories within the Villains world, I'm also hard at work on the third Villains novel, which will wrap up the main, bulk of the storyline. So everything else comic-shaped needs to fit into the world of those three books. If I did another comic, it would probably be set between Vengeful and Victorious, the third book. Just like this one was between Vicious and Vengeful, the second book.
Looking back at this graphic novel, what were you most excited to expand from the universe in this format?
Honestly, the visualization of the powers and getting to see an artist's interpretation of people that I already know very well, because there's no canon. I'm a writer, and Enid is an illustrator. This is an iteration. This is one manifestation, but if you go online, and you look at fan art for these characters, they vary wildly, and that's fine.
In fact, one of my favorite elements about doing comics is the variant covers, because those variant covers are done by different artists. We get to see truly different interpretations of these characters and their powers, so I like that because I think anytime you're dealing with superpowers, there's a visual element to that, but I also just love getting to see different artists' interpretations of these people and their powers.
Wrapping this up, what do you hope readers take away from ExtraOrdinary?
I hope it's fun. If they haven't picked up the novel, I hope it makes them want to go and pick up the novel. If they have picked up the novels, I hope they pick up on some of the clues seeded into the comic. I hope in that way it's a little bit of a treasure hunt, or an entry point I hope it intrigues people enough. I always want people to wonder what their superpower would be? What kind of circumstances would lead to it like what would their origin story look like?