Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: Congratulations on the upcoming release of your and Mike Mignola’s new series, Joe Golem: Occult Detective - The Conjurors. What can you share with us about the premise of this latest comic book adaptation?



Christopher Golden: The Conjurors marks the end of one phase of Joe Golem’s life and the beginning of the next. It also introduces new characters and new threads that will take us both forward and backward in time. Longtime nemesis Dr. Cocteau has abducted aging stage magician Felix Orlov and unlocked the secret of Felix’s true origins—his father is one of the gods of the Outer Dark. Cocteau has spent his life trying to find a way to communicate with the Outerverse, hoping to be the first human being to travel there, to explore it… To do that, he needs Felix’s cooperation, and to force that cooperation, he needs Molly McHugh. The only one who could help her is Joe Golem, but Joe is dead…or is he?



BD: Joe Golem is only one of your current releases, as your latest Ben Walker novel, The Pandora Room, was released on April 23. What was your experience in bringing ancient lore to life as a horror novel?



CG: Digging into ancient myths and folklore is one of the best things about my job. I’ve always had a passion for this stuff. It sparks my imagination, and I’m constantly coming up with new ways to twist this stuff and bring it into the modern world. I tend to stumble on inconsistencies in myths or legends that make me want to build stories that both explain those inconsistencies and turn them into vehicles for new stories. I’ve been doing that since my first novel, Of Saints and Shadows. In this case, I was poking around, reading about the Pandora myth, and, like so many others, the myth has multiple variations. Smashing those together led to the question: What if there were two jars (It would’ve been a jar, not a box—that’s a mistranslation.), one full of all the world’s blessings and one full of its curses? And what if one of them was discovered in the modern world, but nobody knew which one it was? Governments and terrorists would all want it, and they’d kill for it. But one step further…what if it’s real, and it’s filled with horrors, and they began to leak?



BD: AGC Television also recently announced that they will be adapting your Ben Walker novels for TV. What has been your experience in adapting your characters and stories to the screen?



CG: AGC has been a fantastic development partner for this. I’m currently working on the bible and the pilot, and I’m an Executive Producer on the project. The series is not a direct adaptation so much as it is an expansion of Walker’s world and his story, that will also encompass the novels I’ve done so far. I can’t go into detail, obviously, but the process has been great thus far.



BD: Do you feel that the cinematic adaptations of the Ben Walker novels will offer an opportunity for both new and seasoned fans to enjoy the stories to be told?



CG: We’re really getting into Walker’s world and expanding and developing it, so absolutely. What we do on TV will be its own animal, but fans of the books will also not be disappointed.



BD: Are there any additional projects on which you are working that you are able to share with our readers?



CG: I’m currently working on the next Walker novel, Red Hands, and am an Executive Producer on the feature adaptation of my novel, Snowblind, which is in the scripting stage at this point but for which I have high hopes. There are some other film and TV developments I can’t discuss at the moment, as well as secret new projects with Dark Horse and Marvel, but it’s too early to announce those.



BD: Lastly, what would you like to tell fans who want to learn more about Joe Golem: Occult Detective - The Conjurors and The Pandora Room?



CG: My new website just launched at www.christophergolden.com. It’s a work in progress, but I love it.







