Sean J. Jordan, executive editor of Dabel Brothers Productions, told SCI FI Wire that the comic-book company is adapting several works by popular SF/fantasy novelists, including two novels by multiple-award-winning SF/fantasy author Orson Scott Card. "[The first of these,] Red Prophet, is the story of an alternate history of the American frontier where folk magic actually works," Jordan said in an interview.

DB Pro’s other Card project is an adaptation of Wyrms. "I liken it to a cross between Dune and the epic structure of Gilgamesh, but it’s quite a bit different from both," Jordan said.

Also due out soon is an adaptation of best-selling author Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake vampire series. "I think the best way to describe them is as an R-rated Buffy series," Jordan said, referring to TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "We’re starting our adaptation with the first book, Guilty Pleasures."

Dabel Brothers Productions realized that it would need to find a niche if it wanted to build a company that would be around for more than a year or two, Jordan said. "Ernst and Les Dabel happened to be big fans of George R.R. Martin, and they hounded him constantly about giving them the rights to his epic series, A Song of Ice and Fire," Jordan said. "Mr. Martin opted to give them something smaller instead: the rights to a novella he’d written called The Hedge Knight that could serve as a sort of ’first date’ to see if the Dabels, who had done nothing at that point, were ready for something so much bigger. [It] went on to become one of the best-selling graphic novels of 2004."

One of the reasons DB Pro prefers adaptations to original work is that the company finds that creating work for established fans is much easier than creating original material that has to generate fans of its own, Jordan said. "When we adapt a story by Raymond E. Feist, for example, we know that some portion of his millions of fans worldwide will be interested in what we’re doing and check our books out, particularly since we’re adapting books that have yet to be otherwise brought into the visual medium," he said.

Though its focus is adaptations, Dabel Brothers does produce original books as well. "Bill Tortolini (our art director and letterer extraordinaire) just released the first issue of his four-part creation, Marshall, which is a sci-fi western that any fan of Firefly or Serenity would love," Jordan said. "We’re also working on a video-game-themed book called Minus World that I created and am writing. It should be out next year. And I would also be loath to leave out our other original series, Legacy, which came out the same time as The Hedge Knight and will be coming back in a big way down the road." -John Joseph Adams