REMEMBERING DAN

Dan Green has passed away.  Dan was one of our finest inkers, as well as a brilliant illustrator in his own right, as evidenced by his work on our Doctor Strange graphic novel, Into Shamballa.  Dan was also an old friend—his daughter, Galen, and my son, Cody, grew up together and remain friends to this day—and he will be profoundly missed by all of us who knew him.  

Back in 2018 I was interviewed about working with Dan on Shamballa.  Here’s what I said about that unique collaboration.

Keep in mind it’s been decades and memories are fragile things, so take everything that follows with the proverbial grain of salt.  That said, Dan saved my outlines and scripts and many of his layouts and notes, so, using that as a kind of archaeological guide, I’ve tried to reconstruct the way we created Into Shamballa.  

Since Dan and I lived in the same town and we saw each other regularly, that allowed us to work very closely every step of the way, bouncing things back and forth, building the story together, brick by brick.  After we talked the story through and came up with a framework that excited us, we pitched it to Jim Shooter, who was editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time, and he had some very valuable insights that helped bring our story into deeper focus.  I then wrote up a five page story outline for our editor, Carl Potts, that we also shared with Roger Stern, who was writing the Strange monthly at the time.  We wanted to make sure that we weren’t stepping on Roger’s toes and that our story didn’t overlap with anything he was doing.

From there Dan and I worked out more details of the story, discussed layouts, tone, etc.  Then, based on our conversations, I wrote up another outline, breaking the story down, which Dan used as a jumping off point, laying out the entire graphic novel and, I’m sure, adding new details along the way.

I wrote my script from Dan’s layouts, but I was free to change things, make shifts, as I went along.  Dan recently unearthed lots of material that he’d saved and found some of my own layouts—and I use the term loosely!—that I’d do if, in the writing, my script deviated from what Dan had already done.  This way he had a sense of what I was seeing in my head as I was writing.  I also added some art notes to the script itself, something I’d forgotten until Dan showed me the old pages.

I’m sure Dan had feedback about the script that I then incorporated into a another draft and, with that in front of him, Dan worked out the final layouts.  I suspect we discussed that, making sure we were both happy, after which he went on to the finished art—which, all these years later, still stands as some of the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen in a comic book or graphic novel.

This kind of back and forth is not the way the average comic book is done!  The fact that were were able to do so much work face to face, and that we had the extended deadline that graphic novels afford, allowed us to really collaborate in a way writers and artists in comics working on monthly comics just can’t.  It was a magical collaboration as befits such a magical character. 

Safe travels, Dan.  Say hello to the Lords of Shamballa for me.