Momentum is building this summer for author Thomas E. Sniegoski. In July alone, he had 3 books published on the same day (Hellboy: The God Machine and The Sleeper Conspiracy ; parts 1 and 2). Also in July, the 2nd issue of his 4 issue comic series, Talent, was released, and ABC Family aired the first installment of their limited series Fallen, which is based on his young adult novels. The 3rd book in his adult series The Menagiere, co-written with Christopher Golden, is set to be published in September. Also, it was just announced on August 3rd that the Fallen book series will be reprinted, along with a new cover with a tie in to the cast of the ABC Family movie. The first print run was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five thousand and every online re-seller is now sold out.

Sniegoski has had a hand in creating works in numerous and varied formats which include comic books, video game scripts, original novels, and books set in the Buffy and Angel universe. Fallen is the first of his original creations to be adapted to film, but certainly will not be the last. The comic series, Talent, also co-written with Golden, has recently been optioned for development as a theatrical release by Universal. It is about a man who is the only survivor of a plane crash, and who finds himself with unique abilities and new enemies. His Sleeper Conspiracy series has just been optioned by Warner Brothers, and an earlier series, Outcast was also optioned by Universal 18 months ago.

In an exclusive interview with MediaBlvd Magazine, Sniegoski talked about the origins for the Fallen series concept, the adaptation of his work to television, and the numerous other projects that are on-going. “A lot of it came from the fact that I was raised a Catholic. The older churches have the older statues. The church my family went too was St. Michael’s and the angel Michael was depicted in different ways. One of the statues was this winged warrior standing on the head of Satan. I would see this thing week after week, and I was like ‘That’s scary.’ Scary Angels in my church, that’s primarily where the germ came from."

I was a little taken a back by how much buzz there seemed to be on it Sniegoski is somewhat surprised by the ground swell of fandom for the series, and was surprised at the response at the recent Comic Con convention in San Diego. “It’s really tough when you are sitting in your office with the dog on your couch, your wife doesn’t come home until 6, and you’re in your own little universe. It’s kind of like you’re not exposed to anything and ‘I guess it’s exciting’,” he said. “Going out to San Diego and seeing all the stuff at Comic Con was an eye opener, because it was the first time I’d really been exposed to it. I was a little taken a back by how much buzz there seemed to be on it.”

A friend of Tom’s called him from the Comic Con during the preview night with the news of how heavily ABC Family was promoting the show. “I got a call from Eric Powell, a real good friend of mine-all it was, was his screaming ‘You’re on the bag!, You’re on the bag,’ he laughs. Every gift bag given out to registrants had the Fallen poster, and a giant 50 foot banner for Fallen draped the entry into the Sails Pavilion at the convention center. “The weekend just kept topping itself. The panel was standing room only, and at the signing we had the line wrapped around the booth a couple of times. It was really, really cool,” he says. “It was a riot, they were treating me like Peter Frampton- ‘Stand here, when the door opens, go there.’ Where I’m used to kind of just barreling into the room.”

Sniegoski did get to give some input on the direction the screenplay was taking. “Two of the producers on the film are also my managers, so they kept me in the loop. I was seeing almost every version of the script, and they would ask me for my two cents. It was really cool to be a part of the project, though they probably ignored me about 50 percent of the time,” he jokes. “It was still great to be a part of the equation.”

But it was his four day visit to the set that really told him that the movie was happening: “The movie had been in production and I’d been seeing dailies, but that’s when it hit me when I was there on the set,” he says. “As we were driving out into the country, I could see this thing in the distance that kind of caught your eyes because it was so unusual. It was this large square thing held up by an enormous crane. It looked like it should have been in orbit around the Earth. As we pulled down the long stretch of road leading to the farm, it was hanging over the center of the property. And what it was, was the rigging used to do the flying effects, and there was a major aerial fight scene going on as we arrived.” One of the scenes from the finale with Camael (Rick Worthy) doing battle with one of the evil Angels was being filmed as the group got to the set. “Pete, my manager was like ‘See all of this craziness going on, it’s all because of you’."

Sniegoski was ok with the significant changes to the ending of the movie, as compared to the book. “You realize when you are going from a novel, to a screenplay, to a film, there’s going to have to be give and take. You can’t get stubborn. You have to develop a really thick skin. Most of the time they had a really good reason for doing what they were going to do,” he says. “Slaughtering a family and putting an autistic child in danger, doesn’t really scream family values. It’s a little rougher than they (ABC Family) wanted to get."

Though the novels are marketed for young adults, they do contain complicated and violent situations. “I’m sure there are guidelines specific to each publishing house, but how they are enforced depends a lot on the editor-what’s too far, what’s not far enough,” Sniegoski says. “You get a sense of what you can do. Since the Fallen books were for an older teen audience, they can handle the creepier stuff. But if it was for a younger group like 8, 9, or 10, I’d have pulled back more.”

Regarding the one change that seems to have most have upset the fans, the change in gender of the lead villain Verchiel (Elizabeth Lackey), Tom explained the reasoning. “The film was so male heavy already; they decided they needed another female face. That one seems to have really irritated the fans, reading the message boards. Also the fact that Verchiel is killed. Because it’s a film, they wanted some sense of closure to something.” The next films will likely have a new angel with some of the same attributes that make up Verchiel’s character in the later books. Though Tom isn’t sure how closely, or if at all, the next movies will follow the rest of the book series. “There have been lots of treatments and screenplays and I’m not sure if any of those have been used. As of now, I really don’t know what they’re planning,” he says. He also is unsure of whether or not he will be asked to be as involved in the later installments. “They were so good with the first film, that I’d hope so. I’d be really disappointed if I didn’t get to be involved in the 2nd film, But it’s their (ABC Family’s) decision to make. I think the fans would appreciate it too, because they would know that at least I was helping tweak things or whatever.”

Asked about the possibility for more stories from Fallen after next summer’s movies, Sniegoski was optimistic. “I know they were very very happy with the ratings. I left it wide open at the end of the 4th book, but just got really busy. I could very easily see them doing two more movies, then spinning off a television series from there, but that’s their decision to make,” he says. Regarding the recent changes at ABC Family that have resulted in new programs such as Kyle XY, Three Moons Over Milford and others, Sniegoski, like many of the viewers is impressed. “It’s almost as if they made a decision to define themselves in that way. It’s almost like they’re at the point that the WB was when they were first starting,” he says. “I think they’re very happy with that comparison.”

Part of Sniegoski’s visit to the set involved interacting with the four legged main character, Gabriel, and the dog that plays him, Doolittle. “I met pretty much all the major characters who were phenomenal. But I’m a huge dog person and, when I’d show up on the set the trainers were like, ’ok, Tom’s here, go get Doolittle’, and they’d have me playing with the dog. ’Keep Tom out of trouble, let him play with the dog’", he jokes. “Anybody who knows says, ’That’s Mulder (Tom’s own pet Labrador), your writing about Mulder’, but Doolittle is a little bit smarter," laughs Tom.

Many of his projects are done with close friend and author, Christopher Golden. The story for the Talent comic was something that was “batted around 8 or 9 years ago. As we were getting the concept ready, Sept 11 happened. There was an element of the initial script that dealt with a bombing on a plane. People just felt it was too risky so the project got stuck in a drawer. Some of the best reviews I’ve gotten on anything I’ve written have come from Talent,” he says. The Outcast series, Menagerie, and other works have also been co-authored with Golden. “Chris and I try to do at least 1 or 2 projects a year”.

On writing together, Sniegoski says, “It’s really interesting, I’ve had people tell me..., my wife for example, says when she reads us separately, we’re two completely different styles, but when we write together, it would be hard to tell who did what. We develop this kind of one voice, and when the book is done we go thru it and give it that one voice,” he says. The pair first worked together in the final stages of the Vampirella comic when Golden was brought in to tie up some loose ends. “Of all the people I’ve worked with, he’s almost like a brother, so it’s like a family thing. Every morning, we have our 9:15 phone call, and our wives are like ‘Oh, your girlfriend is on the phone’."

Other recent and on going works are numerous and varied. Outcast is a fantasy series in which the lead character is the only person in the world who can’t use magic. “That was our answer to Harry Potter. I had come up the initial concept of a kid without the ability to do magic in a world of magic,” he says. The concept came together quickly for the pair. “I told Chris my basic idea, and we were like ’Well we could do...’ and ’Yeah, and we could do this...’ The whole idea came into reality in less than 10 minutes. We wrote a pitch. We had it over to our editors the next day, and we had an offer in less than a week,” he says.

While his personality is away, this other personality, this killer, is activated and performing jobs Sleeper Code and Sleeper Agenda , just released two weeks ago have already been optioned for adaptation to film by Warner Bros. “Those are my next things to hit the studios,” he says. “Those are more like dark thrillers. There’s no supernatural stuff at all connected with those. The book deals with split personality- the main plot of the book is about a kid who was born with a rare form of narcolepsy. He’s isolated away by his family. He’s in his own little world, and there’s nothing he wants more than to be normal. The attacks are starting to slow down, but it all comes crashing down around him when he has a really severe attack. What he learns is that when he has an attack his personality goes away, and another one is activated. And it’s all part of this bizarre covert government experiment. He’s a sleeper agent who doesn’t even know he’s a sleeper agent. While his personality is away, this other personality, this killer, is activated and performing jobs.”

Another recent highlight was Tom’s Hellboy novel. “I’m like a huge fan, so being asked to write a Hellboy book was like being handed a billion dollars. Also what was cool was to get the blessing of Mike Mignola. He was like, I can’t wait to read yours, I bet it will be really crazy,” he says. “That’s like a badge of honor to come from Mignola.”

Tom describes The Menagerie series, also co-authored with Golden as “kind of like a supernatural Mission Impossible.” All sorts of dark characters are going after other things that are darker than them.

In addition to an original Angel novel, and an Angel/Buffy crossover book, Tom wrote the monthly Angel comic from Issue 6 to the end, and wrote two Buffy video game scripts along with Golden. “It’s was fun, but it was also really frustrating,” he says about the games. “For example, Buffy’s fighting a bunch of vampires, every one of those vampires require a certain amount of dialogue. We would literally be writing 50 lines of dialogue for a vampire that meant nothing to the game,” he says. “Every one of these characters had so many lines of pithy dialogue, we were both like ‘I’m so sick of pithy dialogue, I’m going to kill myself, I can’t do it anymore’. How many different ways can you do it? There are a hundred responses to a slap, and a hundred different ones to a kick. It got to the point where your eyes are crossing.”

Tom’s own favorites from the many things that he has done have to be divided into categories. His favorite novel hasn’t been released yet, but will be sometime next year. “A Kiss before the Apocalypse- my homage to hard boiled detective stories with an angelic twist," he says. “I think that’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and I’m really excited for that to get out there.” The story is about an angel who abandoned heaven, and set himself up as a private eye. One day a host of angels shows up in his office and hire him to find the angel of death who has gone missing because things aren’t dying any more.

Devil Dinosaur and Big Johnson Bone- I wear those proud Sniegoski has two comic book experiences that tie for his own favorites. “Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur- A giant bright red T-rex with a monkey cave boy riding him... Absolutely crazy, but I did a one shot with Eric Powell,” he says. “It was just a riot, and one of the most fun times I’ve had. Before that I was asked by Jeff Smith personally to write the prequel to Bone. It scared the living daylights out of me. It was called Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails. Jeff was really interested in the story feeling like a tall tale. That was a real honor to work on that with him. Devil Dinosaur and Big Johnson Bone- I wear those proud,” says Sniegoski.

Looking again at Fallen, overall, Sniegoski is very pleased with the treatment that his novel received when it was adapted, and is happy that ABC Family seems committed to it. “I just see an enormous amount of potential, and if they play their cards right, they could be sitting on top of something really special,” he says.

Fallen airs again on ABC Family on Sunday August 6, and is still available for download from the ABC Family site.