By Robert Greenberger

Comic book fans are certainly familiar with parallel universe but imagine being a desperate man seeking a cure for his wife's terminal illness and the search brings him to myriad realities. That the core premise to Dean Koontz first original comic book series, Nevermore. After conceiving the project, he handed it off to more seasoned comic book professionals to execute and after delays, the project is finally seeing the light of day in 2011. We sat down recently with inker turned writer Keith Champagne to discuss his participation in the miniseries.

Champagne, who has inked for numerous companies for the last 20 years, has also dabbled as a writer with increasing frequency over the last handful of years. He explained he took the assignment because, like most things I do, I was asked.

"In this case, Andy Smith (the artist of the original incarnation of the series) actually got the gig first. At the time, Mr. Koontz had written an overview of the concept and the characters but there was no writer attached to the series. Andy and I had worked together several times before, he's a friend, so when he asked if I'd be interested in writing it, I told him to have the Dabel Brothers (the original publishers) contact me to talk it over.

"If I remember right, Les Dabel called me a day or two later and sent me the synopsis, I felt like I could bring something to it, and we were off to the races from there.

Unfortunately, the Dabel Brothers publishing initiative came to an end until Dynamite Entertainment stepped in and acquired the properties. While some could be fast-tracked to publication, others, including Nevermore, needed retooling.

This project was in disarray and Nick Barrucci and Dynamite deserve all the credit in the world in saving it from oblivion. Not only did Nicky save it, he thought Nevermore was special enough that he re-started the project from scratch and gave us a totally new lease on life. It's more than I ever could have hoped for with this book."

So does this make the 2011 miniseries Nevermore 2.0?

"Because of the business issues with the previous publisher, Andy had to leave the project after a couple of issues. Another artist had come on to do the third issue and I believe a third artist was going to finish the series.  It was a mess; if the book was ever collected, it was going to look like scrambled eggs,Champagne added.

"So Dynamite, with the five out of six scripts I had written at that point in hand, just started fresh. They went out and found an amazing artist, Leno Carvalho, to start over with issue one, page one and go from there.  So, I've been tweaking--and will continue to refine the scripts. There's new coloring, new dialogue, new lettering. It's really amazing how well it's turning out and I'm happy to say it feels like the project now really does justice to the fantastic characters and concept the Mr. Koontz created."

Speaking of the best-selling novelist, Champagne gives him all the credit for the development work on the premise. The premise and characters came full blown out of Mr. Koontz's head. The treatment I was given was very rich in concept and really nailed the essence of the main characters,he said.

The writer was provided with character notes, also known as beats, but it fell to Champagne to pace out the issue by issue rhythm of the story and figure out how to tell the story in the allotted pages. Koontz maintained final approval of the script execution and he and his manager, Nancy, have never been anything less than absolutely gracious and supportive of my work. He certainly has the right to throw his weight around but seriously, it's the easiest licensed property I've ever written. From a creative standpoint, a pure joy."

Koontz made the time to review each script, ensuring that Champagne was remaining faithful to the vision that sparked the project. His comments were all about redirecting the writer back to the character's core. Apparently, there was little need for even that much input.

"I haven't read his entire output, really, the guy is prolific,Champagne says of Koontz. There aren't enough hours in the day. But I've read the Odd Thomas stuff and the Frankenstein stuff, both in novel and graphic novel forms. Aside from just admiring his structure and characterization, I broaden my vocabulary reading his stuff. He's a human thesaurus!"

While jumping from alternate reality to alternate reality is new to Koontz, it was not at all new to Champagne who not only inked stories set in various publishers multiverse, but also mixed and matched incarnations of DC heroes in the Countdown: Arena miniseries. As a result, was it difficult for him to come up with fresh alternate Earths? That's a good question because, maybe in the world of novels, parallel Earths haven't been played with as much but in comics, visiting Earth 2 through 9 happens every Friday, pretty much. So yeah, it was difficult to conceive of fresh parallel Earths.

"Instead of thinking, ok, what shocking way can I make this Earth different from our Earth, I tried to organically find differences that tied into the characters and their journey. Every earth the team visits is basically a speed bump --more often a mountain -- in their quest. So each new Earth became a process of thinking, ok, what is it with this world that's really going to throw a wrench in the works? How bad will this Earth make Bobby Godrick suffer?'

"So while there are futuristic earths and divergent timelines and histories, the parallel worlds mainly exist to hurt our main characters in new and interesting ways."

The experience Champagne brought to Nevermore helped to a degree but he noted that DC's vast multiverse has a shorthand that regular readers recognize. For example, sometimes, Superman is a good guy. Other times, he's Russian or Ultra Man or whatever. But there's always going to be an analogue to the characters readers know.

"It's similar but in this case, the doors were open a little wider to just create and explore."

Considering the story is driven by Bobby Godrick's quest to find a cure for his wife's  brain cancer, Champagne not only had to make parallel universes clear to the reader, but boil down the medical issues into something simpler than mere jargon. While he considers himself a fairly average thinker, he did do his homework.

"I've spoken with several surgeons at John Hopkins, as well as observed a brain surgery (I passed out). I also travelled to nine alternate Earths myself, all in the name of research. Luckily, travel is a tax deduction in this case. Those trips aren't cheap!"

Godrick's story comes to a definite conclusion in issue six, but once you discover parallel worlds, the temptation might be to revisit them. When asked about a potential sequel, Champagne said, while Mr. Koontz created this concept and these characters, I feel like I adopted them. They're not my kids by blood but I love 'em just the same and I would hope if we're going to do more, they don't leave the nest quite yet. I've got a folder full of notes on where things go-- and where things go wrong--from the end of #6."

For Champagne, Nevermore is a step in his evolution as a creator, who wanted to do more than just ink.  I didn't grow up thinking I'd ink 42 issues of JSA, in fact I started pitching ideas to DC ten years ago, around the time I started working on Superboy with Tom Grummett and Pasqal Ferry and it took about five years before any of them began to stick. I'll always credit Mike McAvennie for assigning me an issue of Legion to write (although it ended up being edited by Wacker) and the great and powerful Peter Tomasi for really giving me the chances to get out of the starting blocks. Not a day goes by when I don't wish he was still on staff. And not a day goes by when he wishes he was."

While he is stretching as a writer, which he says is his true love; he still enjoys inking and has gotten a tad more selective, working with friends including Doug Mahnke and Pat Gleason. Still, the old adage you write what you know has also helped Champagne's career. The former wrestling coach is now writing WWE Heroes for Titan Books.  I've also got some irons about to come out of the fire at DC; I've been laying low there since my last series ended. Most importantly, along with a few friends, I've started a publishing company: 5th Dimension and you're going to start hearing quite a bit more about that beginning in the New Year! Exciting times, life is good."

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