Buffy : Tales of the Vampires

Most high school sophomore’s writing consist of essays, book reports, and term papers, but fifteen-year-old Sam Loeb spent some of his winter vacation writing a six-page story for Tales of the Vampires # 5, the last part of the Joss Whedon limited series. Loeb teamed-up with artist Tim Sale and crafted a story featuring a vampire from the 1800s. We caught up with Loeb to get some details on his Tale.

THE PULSE: Most fifteen-year-olds don’t get the chance to write comics - no matter who their parents are. How did it feel to have Joss Whedon ask you to play in his playground?

SAM LOEB: It was actually pretty funny. My dad [Jeph Loeb] worked with Joss’ Buffy: Animated, an animated series out of Buffy. So, anyway, my dad left that project to work on SMALLVILLE, but always kept in touch with Joss.

About a year later I was deeply immersed in high school life, and trying to juggle six classes and still maintain a social life, when my dad tells me, "I got a phone call from Joss telling him that Joss was doing a miniseries at Dark Horse called Tales of the Vampires." My dad’s first reaction was Joss was going to ask him to write a story. Turns out Joss was calling to offer ME the job. He said the only rules were it was six pages, and had to be about vampires.

So, as any 15 year-old kid with a backbreaking homework load would do I said, "uhhh ... sure."

THE PULSE: How much of a Buffy fan are you?

LOEB: Pretty big. When my dad worked with Joss, we went back and watched every episode we’d missed, and I’ve seen every Buffy up till the last season. Angel on the other hand I started watching in the middle of the second season and its just gotten better and better since. It’s easily one of my favorite shows on TV.

THE PULSE: What do you like the best about those characters and what Whedon created?

LOEB: It’s just a fun world that Joss created. I always liked the new look he gave vampires, with the whole forehead melty face thing. But what was really great about Buffy was it was this big serious teen drama, but there were characters like Willow and Xander who did nothing but fool around and made it one of the funniest shows on television. Same thing with Angel — like the one just a couple weeks ago where Angel turns into a puppet — I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

THE PULSE: Which era from the Buffy TVS mythos is your story taking place in?

LOEB: The Tales of the Vampires mini-series is just a bunch of different vampire stories. But they have the linking theme of what it’s like to be a vampire and how the world is to them. My story I wouldn’t say takes place in an era so much as the mid 1800s in a Frankenstein-like genre.

THE PULSE: Which characters are featured in your story?

LOEB: My little six page story has three characters; the beautiful nurse, the Doc, and of course our— heh heh, heartless (you’ll get the joke when you read the story) — vampire, to whom our story belongs, Splinter.

THE PULSE: Did you create Splinter? If so, how did you come up with the character?

LOEB: As a matter of fact I did come up with Splinter. Like my father, all my ideas come to me in a drug induced haze, and Splinter was no exception.

Actually to be honest I actually was spending a night in the hospital and Splinter’s character and his little story began to take shape.

THE PULSE: How tough was it to fit a story into the amount of pages?

LOEB: At first it was tough. Some people might look at it and go "Six pages??? That’s hardly anything". Others, though, might say "Oh yeah? How bout YOU try and fill up six pages". But the page thing didn’t really daunt me so much as coming up with an idea out of thin air. I actually didn’t run into any trouble at all once I had the story down.

THE PULSE: How did you just get started writing? I mean I know your dad could show you script examples and things like that, but how did you get into it?

LOEB: Well, Joss called me up and offered me the story in September last year. I, of course, being the good high school student that I am, put it off. Knowing there was no deadline, and I didn’t have to turn anything in, I put it off, and put it off, and put it off some more. Didn’t even come up with a story. Tossed a few ideas around in my head, but basically I just avoided the assignment.

Finally in mid-January, I got an e-mail from Scott Allie (the editor) saying he needed the story in about a week. And well ... once you find out you have a deadline after putting something off for that long you ... just get started writing. Don’t get much of a choice there.

THE PULSE: Did the story flow quickly or were there some moments where you felt stressed and blocked? IF so how did you work through it?

LOEB: I guess you could say I was blocked way back at the beginning. The hardest part of course was coming up with the story. Once I had it though and finally started writing, I just sat down with a yellow legal pad and spilt it all out onto a page.

THE PULSE: Who or what were some of your writing influences while working on this?

LOEB: Obviously Joss. It’s his little universe I got to play in. But in particular there was an episode of Angel (who I haven’t the slightest clue who wrote it. Most likely Steve DeKnight, Jeff Bell, or David Fury, all amazing writers that work on that show) where Angel goes up against a vampire who has had his heart removed, and because of that the vampire is immortal for 24 hours and then he dies. The story I wrote plays around with that little rule. Also my dad showed me some old Bernie Wrightson Frankenstein drawings, and once I saw those I got a much more vivid sense of where the story was taking place and what kind of environment it was in. Oh. And my dad. He ummm ... helps with good comics too.

THE PULSE: How did it feel to have Tim Sale drawing your story?

LOEB: It was an interesting choice. Well ... it actually wasn’t much of a choice at all. My dad and I tossed around a couple ideas of who to use, when finally we looked at his office wall and his comic stack, 90% of which is covered and filled with beautiful Tim Sale artwork, and just said "You know what? I bet Tim could do this."

Also what is great about Tim is he’s experienced and really knows what he’s doing. I’ll be the first to admit my script wasn’t perfect, and one of the first things I said to Tim was "Hey, feel free to play around with the art and placements of things"

THE PULSE: What did you think of the finished art?

LOEB: It was just amazing. Even as I was writing the script I had no idea how beautiful it could have turned out. I mean, it was fun to write, but watching it develop from stage to stage- first the pencils, then the lettering by the amazing Richard Starkings (if there is one thing my father has taught me it’s that lettering IS an important part of comic making, and Richard is the best there is), and finally the colors, and when it was all laid out in the end it just looked fantastic.

THE PULSE: What was your creative atmosphere like? Did you listen to music? Watch TV? Just lock the door and the world out?

LOEB: One Saturday night I picked up my little yellow pad, and started pouring out words. I moved from various couches in my house, and at one point onto a beanbag, but I eventually got it done.

THE PULSE: Did you write full script or plot? How did you decide on which writing style to use?

LOEB: The story sort of had to evolve. Originally it took place entirely from the Doc’s point of view. I pitched that to Joss and he said it should be from the Vampire’s point of view. After a few more pitches and some tweaking of the story, and actually READING Tales of the Vampires #1 (which I admit would have been smarter to have done before I had started just to get a sense of what I was supposed to. "Oooooh! it’s about vampires! And here I was writing about monkeys in the Congo") I had my plot approved, but none of it was on paper. When I finally did get something down it was the script, full and done dialogue and everything, and actually the original script from the finished product is almost the same, save a few lines and some panel placements and angles Tim improvised (which I have to say were EXCELLENT choices).

THE PULSE: Was it tough to get your school work done and get this extra writing assignment done?

LOEB: Luckily, no. My school is slowly adapting a wonderful "year-round" track system, or so they call it, which essentially means it’s the same school year, but you get ten weeks of winter instead of three. Our tax dollars at work. So all my writing took place on vacation time, and school wasn’t a problem.

THE PULSE: What did your friends think of you doing this?

LOEB: When I first told them that I was writing a comic book story everyone’s response was "Hey, cool!", then I mentioned I had absolutely no idea what to do.

So my friend Jonah immediately goes "Hey! You should do a story about a Jewish vampire who goes back in time and kills Hitler". Where his idea came from is completely beyond me, and for legal purposes I have to disclose he had no intention of offending anyone. We’re both Jewish. He’s just a weird guy with an even stranger sense of humor.

But he comes to me later that day during math class and hands me a piece of paper with the one page cartoon - "The Wacky Crazy Zaney Adventures of Hitler and the Blood Sucking Jew!" with a drawing of a bat biting into a very poor drawing of what apparently was supposed to be Hitler, with the bat saying "I want to suck your blood! lehiem!" and Hitler yelling "Baa! you can’t eat me, I’m not kosher!"

Unfortunately I pitched the idea to Joss, and he said I needed something else. Probably a good call.

THE PULSE: Are you working on any other projects?

LOEB: Well, as much fun as it was, and believe me it was A LOT of fun, right now I think I’m going to take a break from the comic writing scene. But they say Brian Michael Bendis is starting his 17th title "Ultimate Nimrod", but instead of being a robot from the future Nimrod is a 15 year old kid dealing with the pressures of high school life. Now, rumor has it, and you certainly didn’t hear this from me, he won’t stay on this new book long, and will need someone to take over the title for him ...

THE PULSE: Now that you’ve written a story, is this something you could see yourself wanting to do for a living?

LOEB: People ask me a lot what I want to be when I grow up. Pretty simple actually. I’m looking into the future career as billionaire. Not too tough a job. Have lots of money, and in your spare time spend it.