NICNEVIN AND THE BLOODY QUEEN Preview Pages and Q&A with Writer Helen Mullane

What at first seems like a boring summer in the countryside turns into a mythical coming-of-age journey for a London teenager in Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen, the graphic novel debut of writer Helen Mullane. With Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen out now as a trade paperback from Humanoids, we caught up with Mullane to discuss the layers of her thought-provoking folk horror comic, including her talented art team, the book's cinematic influences, and how she comes up with some of her best ideas while dog sledding.

You can read our full Q&A with Mullane below, and we've also been provided with a gallery of preview pages and artwork from Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen. To learn more about the graphic novel, visit:

• https://www.humanoids.com/y_catalog/book/id/940

Thanks for taking the time to answer questions for us, and congratulations on Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen! When and how did you come up with the idea for this graphic novel?

Helen Mullane: My pleasure, thanks so much for being interested in our book!

This is something that I had been wanting to write for many years. It started as a vague idea that had more to do with atmosphere than story, riffing off all this terrifying kids telly from the ’70s. After atmosphere, the next thing to fall into place was the main character, Nissy. She’s this very modern, worldly teenager who only cares about her mates and having fun. So when she’s taken to the countryside for the summer, she’s absolutely livid. The book follows her sullen rebellion against her mum and her burgeoning obsession with this older guy, but all the while the world is clearly going mad around her, but she’s too wrapped up in her own thoughts to even notice. It’s a story that’s half fraught family drama and half batshit horror fantasy.

Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen is your graphic novel debut. What was it about the graphic novel format that made it the best creative avenue to tell this story?

Helen Mullane: I originally imagined Nicnevin as a really dark kids' TV show, just like the shows that had inspired me. Then one day I was down at the pub enjoying a pint with the artist Dom Reardon during the filming of Futureshock! We had an amazingly animated discussion about our mutual love of folk horror and all things wyrd and I told him about this show I wanted to do. He suggested that I write it as a comic instead, on the promise that he would then draw it if he liked the scripts. That’s not the sort of opportunity that comes along every day, so of course I jumped at the chance!

Once I started plotting it out it quickly became clear that comics is the perfect medium for this story. It allowed us so much freedom to play with atmosphere and tone. But it also allowed budget-busting special effects and locations. In comics, the sky’s the limit! You want loads of woodland creatures following your hero around the whole time? You got it! You want a creepy subterranean world populated by giant glowing maggots? Mythical beasts? Why the hell not!

Your story is accompanied by beautiful and foreboding artwork by Dom Reardon and Matthew Dow Smith, along with coloring by Lee Loughridge and lettering by Robin Jones. What’s it been like to work with them, and what made them the right fit to help bring Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen to life?

Helen Mullane: Every member of the creative team was absolutely instrumental to the final product. The kind of quiet drama that characterises a lot of the book simply wouldn’t work without the supreme skill of Dom and Matthew. They needed to portray so much through art alone, both action and emotion. Each character’s ‘acting’ on the page had to be spot on to carry the story. And that’s not even mentioning the amazing fantasy set pieces they created!

The lettering and colouring were also extremely important to make this book work. Lee Loughridge has coloured titles like Fables and Hellblazer, so he’s no stranger to this folkloric tone. He brought a marvelously grounded texture to the pages, he really helps sell the mix of magic and reality. Our letterer, Robin, had the challenging job of giving life and personality to a variety of different voices within the world of the comic, some mundane and some magic, and thanks to him these disparate threads are easy to follow.

And then the icing on the cake is Jock’s cover—he really managed to distill the essence of the story into this beautiful, creepy image. As the first thing people see to introduce the book, we couldn’t have asked for more.

Were you influenced or inspired by any other comic books, movies, or TV shows while working on this story?

Helen Mullane: Absolutely. This story is drawing from a myriad of influences across media. There’s too much to list in full, but some key influences are classic movies like The Wicker Man, Blood on Satan’s Claw and I Start Counting, classic British TV movies like Penda’s Fen and Robin Redbreast, and the whole melee of folk horror young adult fiction of the ’70s like The Owl Service and Children of the Stones. I’m so happy that a lot of these more obscure works are enjoying really high quality re-releases at the moment, so I would urge anyone who enjoys Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen to delve deeper and check them out. Folk horror is such a rich subgenre that has been tackled in so many ways over the last few decades.

I understand that in addition to writing, you do sled dog training and racing. Do you come up with creative ideas while out with your dogs?

Helen Mullane: Yes, I’m part of what I believe to be quite a small group of dog mushing horror writers! I find the mushing lifestyle endlessly inspiring. I do long distance, driving dogs thousands of miles through snowy mountains and forests over the course of a winter season, so that gives you a lot of time alone with your thoughts. Almost like meditation, if you drive your team for enough hours, eventually you achieve this magical mental stillness and it’s in this state ideas often get fleshed out to become stories, or knots in a story can suddenly come unstuck in a beautiful eureka moment.

With its strong story and striking visuals, I think Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen would translate well to the screen. Have there been any talks about an adaptation? Do you have any dream casting in mind for your characters?

Helen Mullane: There have not been any talks as far as I know, but that would be a dream! Our publisher, Humanoids, has an office in LA and a team dedicated to developing their books into other mediums, so if it were ever to be adapted it couldn’t be in better hands.

If it were to be adapted, I would love the film to create opportunities for some black British actors to enjoy meaty roles at home. It’s an ongoing problem that many of Britain’s best talents are moving across the pond because the UK is not serving them with the roles they deserve.

It feels like there are more stories to tell in the world of Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen. Do you have any plans for a sequel, prequel, or spinoff?

Helen Mullane: A lot depends on how the book is received and how it sells. There are definitely more stories here we’d love to tell. I have an idea for this book as part of an unconventional trilogy that explores the stories of three generations of women when each is around the same age. So Nissy’s mum would have a story set in the ’90s, and her grandmother in the ’60s. I’m really interested in generational trauma, and exploring how this same drama / fantasy mix can be used to explore female experience through different eras.

What has it been like to work with Humanoids to release Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen to the world?

Helen Mullane: Working with Humanoids has been a dream! First off, I am so grateful to Alex and the whole team for believing in us and this project. While of course Dom is an established talent, and Jock, who was also on board from the start, is a comic book superstar, I am a complete unknown, so there was a lot of trust from their side to move forward with the project. While we were pitching out the book, we did get a fair few “this is great, love it, but we won’t take on a first-time writer” reactions. But Humanoids saw something in the story and took that chance.

They are such an experienced publisher with such a sophisticated sensibility, we really took the story to the next level guided by their steady hand.

Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen?

Helen Mullane: I hope readers close the book really feeling something. We pull no punches at the end. If the characters feel real enough to invest in, there’s a deep mix of sadness and hope to the story.

So I hope for feeling, and a desire to delve deeper into the world of folk horror!

What advice would you give to aspiring graphic novel writers trying to break into the industry?

Helen Mullane: To be honest, this journey for me has been made possible by people that I know, namely Jock and Dom, and I should also shout out the awesome Will Dennis, who gave some fantastic advice and really went out on a limb for us early in the process. So the best advice I can give to break in the way I have is to get yourself to your nearest con, meet creators and people in the industry, perhaps people who are talented and at the same stage as you, and start creating and collaborating.

But of course going to cons and suchlike is not the route for everybody—it’s expensive, people are shy—so in that case you could write or draw, share your work and chat to likeminded people online. Comics is a small industry and getting to know people with the same interests as you is invaluable.

With Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen out now in paperback from Humanoids, what other upcoming projects are you excited about, and where can our readers go online to keep up with your work?

Helen Mullane: Just at the moment Nicnevin has taken over everything, I’ve been doing as much as I can to help push the release, so that’s put a lot of other stuff on hold! But I have a few projects in the works that I’m really into, one’s a psychedelic erotic adventure comic and the other a pro-choice horror drenched in catholic mysticism. It’s some pretty wild stuff! I’m waiting to see if anyone bites on those, and in the meantime I’ll continue falling into a development trance on my dogsled and seeing what other flashes of inspiration come.

I’m on Twitter, @supermegabot, and the home for news about the book is https://www.humanoids.com/y_catalog/book/id/940

Thank you for the great questions, and interest in Nicnevin and Bloody Queen!