AUTHOR EXCLUSIVE
Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson complete their comic book trilogy with Dune: House Corrino
JUST AS THE SECOND part of Denis Villeneuve’s big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 novel arrives in cinemas, Boom! Studios is releasing Dune: House Corrino, the final volume in Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson’s comic book version of their prequel.
“We saw the original trilogy of novels as three separate books, but one big story,” the authors tell Red Alert. “Because we think of our writing as very cinematic and visual, we’ve always imagined this trilogy would work very well in the comics medium, but it’s a very big epic. Keeping the adaptation as three separate series – House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Corrino – made it much more workable to produce.”
Noting that “not everything can be carried forward,” Herbert and Anderson say that turning their novels into eight, 33-page, oversized issues was a very similar process to producing a movie. “In selecting elements and storylines from the novels for comics, it’s important to set priorities, to determine what is most visually adaptive to the comic book form, while still not losing the essence of the story,” they say.
The pair add that they have emphasised the strong visual aspects of the planet of Arrakis. “A Dune story has many layers, including religion, philosophy and politics, which aren’t easy to convey in comic format,” they continue. “But the vast scope of Frank Herbert’s Dune universe, the planetary landscapes, the immense sandworms and stunning Guild Heighliners really shine in the comics medium. We wish we had a lot more pages to work with so we could accommodate big panels and two-spreads, but we had to balance between the artistic spectacle and the multiple storylines and complex plotting.”
With House Corrino leading up to the events of Dune itself, we can expect to see several familiar characters. “In House Corrino, Duke Leo Atreides and his concu
