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When William Christensen Threw Out Jai Nitz's Pitch For The Ravening

Published Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:00:52 -0500

Jai Nitz writes,

Hi, I'm Jai Nitz, and I'm writing The Ravening at Boundless. We are in the middle of the Kickstarter campaign to bring you the best comic possible, so I wanted to tell you a little about the genesis of the book and why it's something you should check out.

I wrote a piece like this when Boundless ran the Kickstarter campaign for Hellina with Gabriel Andrade and I. That book came together because of the vision of William Christensen and the good graces of Mike Costa. The Ravening came together differently. When I pitched Hellina, William (wisely) threw out a lot of my pitch. I was busy trying to write a T&A Judge Dredd, and William saw through that. That wasn't the book he wanted, and that wasn't why he hired me. Something in my pitch stuck out to him: the idea that Heaven and Hell had been warring for millennia, but Hell recently (in the last 500 years) won. Hell won. That's the two-word pitch. HELL WON. It's deceptively simple. William knew I was onto something there, so he made me scrap everything else, but kept that seed. That seed grew into the world of Hellina and then we branched out.

Writing comic scripts for William Christensen is like playing basketball for Phil Jackson. For those who don't know, Jackson was the coach of the Chicago Bulls when they won all their tiles with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Jackson had to manage the biggest egos in the sport and come up with a game plan that would utilize their unique skills. Christensen has a stable of the greatest writers in comics: Garth Ennis, Kieron Gillen, Christos Gage, and the granddaddy of them all, Alan Moore. Pretty much everyone on the list works for multiple companies, but one name, the biggest name, only works for William Christensen. Alan Moore is inarguably the greatest writer in the history of comics and his presence alone offers legitimacy to the legacy of Christensen as an editor and publisher. Okay, that's great, but what does that have to do with Jai Nitz and the Ravening?

Like I said, William picked up on the HELL WON aspect of my Hellina pitch. From there, we decided to include The Ravening in the world of Hellina. So our main characters, a pair of vampires, would be interlaced with the story we were telling in Hellina. The problem I had was that my Hellina script stunk. I rushed a script to William because I was excited and we needed to move forward with the Kickstarter sooner than expected. So I forced a script. A comic script is like a fart, if you force it, it's probably going to end up shitty. My script was indeed and William let me know it. In my defense, just about anyone's script would look shitty if you were used to getting scripts from Moore, Ennis, Gillen, etc. Some would see that as a reason to fold and turtle up. I saw it as a challenge to get better or get beat. So I tried again. My script got a little better, but it was still closer to lead than gold. So I tried again. And again. Eventually, we got the script to a place that I'm rather proud of it. I read Hellina #1 at Boom Comics in Lawrence, Kansas last week and I enjoyed it. Gabriel Andrade turned in a real winner and I got to go along for the ride. But in the middle of these Hellina rewrites, I was crafting The Ravening #1. So I was gun shy when it came to showing William the script. If it sucked, I was going to hear about it (deservedly so). So I was nervous (understandably so).

I wrote the script for The Ravening #1 and then slept on it. I wanted to take an extra few hours before I sent it to William. I had a plan for a new take on a vampire romance story. We've seen so many of those, from the beginning of vampire fiction including Bram Stoker's Dracula to Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. There are vampire romance TV shows, books, music, comics, and fetish subgroups. (No really, I did a lot of research for this book; there is a mountain of fetishes involving our fanged friends). I had my story of star-crossed lovers and the families they kept. I had my story of the world where Hell won. I had my story of what I wanted to say about the vampire culture in general and why we're drawn to them. And those stories weren't coming together. Maybe I was still shaken by writing for an editor who was used to seeing Alan Moore scripts. Maybe I was afraid of telling another story in a sub-genre that already had a lot of recent hits. Either way, I was worried about my script, so I slept on it. The next morning, I woke up and threw it all out. I started over.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say." That subtle distinction is the difference between a genuine story and a forced hunk of marketing. I didn't want to write the latter, so I focused on what I had to say; the story I had to get out of my skull. That story boils down to two girls who have a lot expected of them in the face of a family tragedy, but rather than go down the expected path, they forge a new path and stick it to the world they know. Rather than turtle up, they accept the challenge laid out before them and they try to make a new and exciting normal.

The Ravening is the story of Corrie and Izzy, two daughters of prominent vampire houses. And when they suffer the wrath of Hell's adjudicator (Hellina) they are forced to regroup and rebuild. Rather than be auctioned off to uncaring suitors, the girls marry each other and defy convention. This new union creates enemies amongst the vampire houses and the other monsters who reap the spoils of Hell's victory. Can these immortal lovers survive a world that wants them deader than undead? You have to read it to find out.

So, what did William think of the script for The Ravening? "Much better." That's all I heard. That was all the compliment I needed.

Please give The Ravening #1 your attention and I think you'll agree that it's worth your time. We had a great time putting the book together, so pledge to the Kickstarter campaign and I promise to deliver.

See you in the funny papers.

Jai Nitz
Lawrence, KS
April 2016

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