Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [108]
My friend and colleague Mark Buckingham, along with the fine gentlemen of Clockwork Storybook, the second greatest writing group in the history of English letters (coming in close, right behind The Inklings), read the chapters as they were completed, and provided many helpful suggestions. They are: Mark Finn, Chris Roberson, Matthew Sturges, and Bill Williams. Mike Sinner, the fellow in the dedication, was always on hand, at the end of the phone, to help me recall details of our shared days in Germany, on those all too frequent occasions when my poor memory wasn’t quite up to the task. Thanks, Mike.
Dr. Radu Florescu’s scholarly work In Search of the Pied Piper was enormously helpful in finding the character Max, and in constructing both versions of Hamelin Town found in this story. I would also like to thank the good people of Germany, who were fine and generous hosts during my years living there, and specifically the citizens of Hamelin. Let me apologize now for the gross liberties I took with your country and your town. My sole excuse is that the changes I made were never for capricious reasons, but were always for the good of the story. Some readers will have caught that I had Peter pay in Deutschmarks, rather than in Euros, in this story, and that was intentional. My version of Germany steadfastly exists sans Euro, for reasons too complex, or petty, to explain here. Certain things, like the robotic missile silo car park, the ice cream rats, and many of the more extraordinary details of modern Hamelin and its environs actually exist as described. I couldn’t make such things up. But some of them have been moved a bit, here and there, to better suit my needs.
The first half of this book was written in Vermont, in the house once owned by Rudyard Kipling, painstakingly restored by the Heritage Foundation, using Kipling’s original books, furniture and fixtures, which they were happily surprised to discover stored in an old barn on the property. Peter and Max were created in the same room, on the same desk in fact, that Kipling created Mowgli, the rest of the Jungle Book characters, Kim, the Captains Courageous, and many others. To say that it was an inspirational setting in which to begin a fantasy adventure story is to be guilty of criminal understatement. Thank you to the kind men and women of the Heritage Foundation, for opening the property to me and for your hard work in making my stay so comfortable, restful, and productive. Thank you, too, to the good ghost in that home for the use of your writing room and library, which always seemed to have just the right text on some obscure subject of medieval history, technology or nature, within arm’s reach, whenever I needed it.
Finally I must single out Steve Leialoha, artist extraordinaire, who provided the illustrations for this tale. Steve has been one of the insiders, illustrating FABLES stories for as long as they’ve been published (eight years now, and counting). With PETER AND MAX he not only interpreted these characters and settings wonderfully, but offered many helpful suggestions on how to make the story stronger.
Some of you readers know that this novel is set in the same fictional world as my long-running comic book series called FABLES, also published by DC/Vertigo. For those who’ve yet to encounter the FABLES comics but who might now be inspired to seek them out after reading this novel, you can find some helpful information on how to do just that in the pages that immediately follow. I hope you’ll decide to linger a while longer in our enchanted woods, and that you find your extended stay rewarding and enjoyable.
BILL WILLINGHAM
I’D LIKE TO