Kostas: Hello Paul! How are you?
Paul: I’m good, thanks! Thrilled to be chatting with you again about Charmed. Who would have thought when you created your website for the comic books a decade ago that we’d still be talking about Charmed stories?
Kostas: Congrats and thank you for the new release!
Paul: Thank you for the years of support. I get to do fun things like this only because the Charmed community is keeping the show alive. Thank you all for that!
Kostas: It’s been some time since we’ve had an OG Charmed release but it feels like you’ve never left Charmed. You’ve expressed in the past that you try and pitch for new releases for the series. What can you tell us about that?
Paul: Very little, I’m sorry to say. Just that it’s been an ongoing process. Whenever I see an opportunity, I try to bring in Charmed. And let me assure you, if you’ve thought about it, I’ve probably pitched it. The challenge is always convincing businesspeople that an audience is still out there for the show. It takes more than just pointing out how popular the series was when it was on the air. It’s about making sure they know there’s still a connection to the fanbase. Things like TNT running episodes for hours on end in the US helps, but the further we get from the series, the further we get from other books that can be used for comparison when trying to convince a sales team that there’s an audience interested in purchasing a new book or whatever.
Kostas: How and who came up with the idea for a Charmed storybook?
Paul: The idea to do a storybook based on Charmed was the brainchild of the co-publisher at the company where I currently work. We’ve released some other storybooks based on movies like The Goonies, The Muppets Christmas Carol, and It’s a Wonderful Life. We were sitting around talking about what other stories we could tell—and obviously she knows about my history with Charmed—and she just suggested it. That was almost two years ago, I’d say.
Kostas: How long was the Storybook in production? Were there any “roadblocks” like likenesses that had to be allowed to be used this time, for example Grams?
Paul: As you’ll see, the artwork is very child-friendly and stylized in a way that it’s not an exact replica of the characters, but a more a look at them as children’s book characters. It’s more like having hints of them in the characters, rather than their actual selves so likeness wasn’t really a roadblock. And, of course, those stylized characters are based on the child actors that were guests in the episodes where we got to see glimpses into the past. There’s hardly ever been likeness issues with any guest characters because they sign a standard contract that includes likeness rights when they accept a role.
Kostas: How was the brainstorming process for the storybook’s plot? Any scrapped storylines you went through? Did you encounter any difficulties given this new format for the series?
Paul: As soon as we came up with the idea, I went back to rewatch all the episodes that looked back on the past, like “P3 H2O,” “That 70s Episode,” and “We All Scream for Ice Cream” to refamiliarize myself with the storylines and the general time of their childhood. (This was both a good and a bad thing, as I rewatched the episodes at the start of the process. But when it came time to actually sit down and write the book months later, the one thing that stuck in my mind about Patty wasn’t correct, as some of you have rightfully called out. I misremembered a fact from “That 70s Episode” where Patty has the premonition while pregnant with Phoebe. I feel terrible about that mistake.)
Spoiler Alert: From pretty much the start, the story was going to be about the girls fighting amongst themselves and finding their resolution via magic, because as we all know, (say it with me now) Charmed is, first and foremost, a story about sisters who happen to be witches. The biggest challenge was finding the magical element that would set the story in motion. We started off trying to create or bring back a child-friendly “demon” to incite the story, but every approach we took was difficult to do in a way that would keep it a bedtime story that didn’t inspire nightmares in our youngest readers. There are certainly many ways to include fun and funny monsters in a children’s book—and Charmed has had such a wide variety of creatures—but every choice we made interfered with the message at the core of the story. It was something we felt and the folks at CBS agreed with. If anyone, the CBS folks were most interested in making sure the book remained as child-friendly as possible. That led us to integrate the Book of Shadows in an interesting new way. The Book of Shadows—and the unseen hands that sometimes turn the pages—has helped the girls in so many ways over the years, it just seemed fitting that it could mentor them in their childhood. And, of course, another unseen hand may have been at work as well.
Kostas: How was your collaboration and back and forth with artist Ria Maria Lee?
Paul: Books like this are a bit more of a process because you go through layers of people to communicate. (This is different from the comic books where I was the writer/editor and I communicated directly with everyone every step along the way.) The bright side is that I was much more closely involved in this title than an author outside of the publishing company would be, so I was one of the people who selected Ria for the project. We were all so drawn to her character work that we knew she’d be perfect for the project.
As for the actual working, we have an incredibly talented art director on the project who took my notes and CBS’s notes and worked with Ria on really bringing the story to life. I got to see every stage of Ria’s work from the very first sketches all the way to the color proofing at the very end. And I even suggested the cover image. So, it’s incredibly collaborative, but with an amazing team working together to make the art jump off the page.
Kostas: There may be more things in the horizon for OG Charmed or nothing at all at the moment. Regardless, what do you think or hope is the future of Charmed’s publications?
Paul: I hope for so many things, really. The Charmed universe is just so rich with potential. That’s the way it is when you’ve got a great concept like the one the show came up with. My greatest hope—which I know I share with pretty much the entire community—is to be able to continue the story in some way and tell all new stories set in the world of the Charmed Ones. But that’s going to be the hardest sell at this point. Failing that, I’d love anything that celebrates the show, whether it be through stories or anything else that lets fans experience the series in a new way.
Ok, let’s be real: I want to do Charmed: The Next Generation. That would be my dream.
Kostas: Any final message to the fans before we go?
Paul: Thank you all for the years of support. I really wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for you all being as wonderful as you are. So thank you for that.
Kostas: Thank you very much, Paul!
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