Review Fix Exclusive: Q & A with ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde’ Author Cole Haddon

Review Fix chats with Dark Horse Comics’ Cole Haddon, who discusses his new four-issue mini-series, “The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde.”

Review Fix: What was the inspiration behind this tale?

Cole Haddon: As a kid, I was addicted to Victorian horror-adventure, both in literature and on screen. Cinema was my gateway drug to it all, I think. It began with Universal monster movies and the old-school creature features and, later, evolved into a love of Hammer horrors. This interest led me to the source material, from Frankenstein, to Dracula, to The Invisible Man. For some reason, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde spoke to me the most, though. I think maybe it was the idea of a good man trying to cure the world of evil and, in the process, unleashing an evil even more terrifying than any he had previously imagined. His ego, in other words, got in the way. While the first couple of film adaptations Hollywood produced are quite brilliant and still hold up today, the quality of the adaptations, the manner in which the character of Mr. Hyde was treated, rapidly deteriorated during the subsequent decades. There are a few exceptions, but mostly the character became a joke. I wanted to rectify that, in some small way. I guess that’s how it started. I wanted to remind the world that Mr. Hyde was, as far as I was concerned, the greatest of the Victorian literary monsters. Luckily, Keith Goldberg at Dark Horse Entertainment agreed with me that the character was in need of a resurrection.

Review Fix: How this comic was written, with the idea of a possible movie playing a part is quite interesting. Can you explain that?

Haddon: I actually pitched it to Dark Horse Entertainment and the Mark Gordon Company as a film, as a sequel to the original novel and a franchise launching pad for more monster movies. Dark Horse agreed to publish a comic book, not knowing that I came from a comic-book background and had wanted to work in the medium for years. After that, we all developed the idea into a screenplay treatment and then sold that as a pitch to Skydance Entertainment. The comic script was written based on that treatment, then the screenplay was written based on the treatment and the comic script. I then went back and altered the comic script based on what I had learned from writing the screenplay. In other words, the many steps we undertook to discover, sell, and then tell the story – even the artwork M.S. Corley generated –helped the story evolve in a very unique way. Most four-issue comic book series don’t have two years of development behind them.

Review Fix: What was it like to work with M.S. Corley?

Haddon: An absolute pleasure. This was my first comic book, or at least the first comic book I wrote that anybody besides my friends has ever read. Mike worked with me to develop a specific “cinematic” language for the comic book that melded his own personal style with the gothic worlds found in Universal monster movies and Hammer horrors. Especially Hammer horrors. I don’t think there’s a panel in the comic that I can’t stand 100% behind. He really knocked this out of the park. On top of all that, he’s just a very kind, generous man. I hope to be working with him for many years.

Review Fix: What do you want readers to get out of the story?

Haddon: The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde was, at its thematic core, inspired by the state of political discourse in America. The ever-expanding divide that seems to separate the two sides and, worse, the very binary way of thinking that has made that divide possible. Good and evil, Left and Right, moral and amoral. Strange Case is about a Scotland Yard inspector, the good Thomas Adye, discovering the weakness of that way of thinking. More, it’s about him realizing that he’s been indoctrinated not to think by the Powers That Be because reason and critical thinking threaten the status quo. So I hope readers take away from the story some greater awareness of their own responsibility to question and challenge everything they’re told. I’m in a constant state of rebellion myself. I guess that means I probably just want more company.

Review Fix: If there was anything you could change about the book, what would it be and why?

Haddon: I wish we had had five issues, if only so Mike Corley could’ve spent more time on the action sequences.

Review Fix: What is your favorite element of the book? What are you most happy about?

Haddon: The comic book was really a team effort by Mike, colorist James Campbell, and myself. Every panel is a synthesis of our sensibilities and skill sets, from Mike’s ability to keep action flowing and render complex emotions in small panels, to Jim’s amazing work with color, light, and patterns, to my dense dialogue and love of garishly red blood (which I blame that on Hammer Films, by the way). My experience with them, and with Keith Goldberg at Dark Horse, is really what I’ll remember most from my time on Strange Case.

Review Fix: How much research went into the writing of this book?

Haddon: To be honest, not much. It was really the culmination of years of interest in Victorian fiction and history, and so, in that regard, I kind of cheated. Mike had to do much more than me. He was already a fan of gothic horror films, but I had a list of titles for him to Netflix and take notes from. He and I also had to scour books and the Internet for period-appropriate furniture and costumes. The details in the background were just as important to me as what was in the foreground. I think I might have been a set designer in a past life.

Review Fix: If you could grab someone who was thinking about purchasing this book and give them a 10-second pitch, what do you think you’d say to them?

Haddon: Do you like monsters? What about monsters kicking the shit out of each other? Then The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde is for you.

For more information on Haddon, you can check him out on Twitter @ColeHaddon