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Anonymous asked: We are always asking something you cant answer about charmed. So now I'm asking what can you tell us about the upcoming episodes or perhaps something about the old episodes what we havent noticed?
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Pat Shand: There’s a pretty big misconception about #1, but I purposely misled with the narrative. You’ll see what I mean down the line. X
Anonymous asked: Will Charmed: Seson 10 Volume 1 have a title, dislike Season 9 Volumes?
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Pat Shand: That is something I’ve been going back and forth about. I probably won’t decide until print day. X
Anonymous asked: Will we ever find out what powers Patience had and is it likely the actual Patience will ever confront Prue (if she gets rescued assuming charon still has her) Prue did steal her body!
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Pat Shand: We are going to cover this in depth in an upcoming issue! X
Anonymous asked: Will we ever see the scene depicted in that s10 promo cover from a few years ago or will we ever see that cover used?
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Pat Shand: I’m thinking about a use for that cover. There is no scene to correspond to it, though, but I think it has a certain thematic relevance. X
Anonymous asked: any chance the sisters will time travel to the past or future this season? Or will we get any drastic flashbacks or flashforwards?
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Pat Shand: There’s a flash-forward in #6 that a lot of #7 and #8 will be spent catching up to.There will be some time travel as well. X
Anonymous asked: WAIT WAIT WAIT. WAIT A SECOND. Did I read something about a Kyra scene you wrote? Kyra the seer? If it's not a flashback and you're bringing her back you might just be my favourite person for the day! The hotness of Charisma Carpenter aside, she had so much potential as a character it's a shame the killed her off so quickly. Oh, and I totally get the soul thing. It sucks for Cole, but it totally makes sense to me.
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Pat Shand: To write dialogue for a character played by Charisma is to hear Charisma in your head. Who would turn that down? X
Anonymous asked: what has been the best thing about becoming the new writer for Charmed and what has been the worst? If you can rate your experience thus far on a scale from 1-10 what would it be?
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Pat Shand: BEST: Bonding with the characters. Even though I really
liked watching Charmed, there is always a chance that I wouldn’t be able to connect to the characters in a way that would be enough for me to justify taking on the gargantuan
commitment of writing an entire season. The fact that they have huge families, and that I am not at all family-oriented myself, worried me a little. But when I began writing the first arc, I
found the rhythm and the me in it very quickly. I’m able to explore who I am through the characters, and who the characters are through myself. It’s a weird cycle, and it’s pretty
new for me — and I love it. With my other two ongoing, Robyn Hood and Grimm Fairy Tales, with the exception of a few characters in the latter, I was able to build up the
entire cast, tone, and plot from scratch. With Charmed, these characters have already been established, long before I came around. Being able to relate as closely as I do when writing
this season has been a lovely surprise. WORST: Being harassed by readers, despite how
well-meaning they are, about a likeness that I’ve already addressed many times. I don’t want to feel anxiety when I see a question in my ask box, but that’s been happening a bit recently, to
the point where I sometimes wonder if I should turn it off for a while. I realize, though, many writers and editors deal with this — just following Bendis and Brevoort on Tumblr shows me
that, so far, I’ve been relatively lucky — but I can’t say that it hasn’t, at certain points, depleted my creative energy. Imagine putting your heart and soul out there for a room full of
strangers to read and experience. And they like it! Yay, happy times. But imagine a small group of them keeps asking you the same question, no matter how many times you answer it. No matter
how many times you ask them to stop. It’s maddening, and it’s invasive, and those negative moments have the power to, for a short time, take the place of the overwhelming positive majority of
moments. SO: So, all in all? Really, it’s 9/10, sometimes 10/10. I wouldn’t trade it
for the world. I want to always write licensed material, no matter what else I’m working on. It’s flexing a different muscle than creator-owned or universe stuff, like Robyn and
GFT. When I love a story, I love it passionately. I’ve said before, my first ever comics gig was my absolute dream job.., writing Angel. That, and now writing Charmed, is
rewarding in a very unique and humbling way. Thanks for the excellent question! X
Anonymous asked: Hey Pat is the frenemy in Haste Makes Wasteland Cole, since his demon half is on the cover?
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Pat Shand: Even if it was Cole — it’s not — you’ve gotta know that I’m not going to give a spoiler on my blog! X
Anonymous asked: Hi Pat great issue. loved it. P.J is quite the little powerhouse, she displayed quite a few new powers in this issue are they all hers power.
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Pat Shand: She didn’t really use any new new powers, though. The wisp kinda more hijacked her latent powers to beam into its own mind. It also used P.J. as a device with which to use
its own powers that it needs a body to access (blasting Piper). X
Anonymous asked: Thanks, so relieved you weren't offended. I said you were freaking amazing too.:) I had just read the issue and was just so excited. Anyway, I just wanted to know whether or not Phoebe and P.J/Wisp were projecting into a vision (aka astral premonition) and if P.J/Wisp did anything special to triggered.
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Pat Shand: Okay, so look at the wisp’s existence this way. The wisp is a feeling made physical, so it exists on both an emotional and a physical plane. What the wisp did was hijack
P.J.’s beaming power, and essentially pulled Phoebe and P.J. into that emotional plane. It was showing them a memory. it’s not something that would’ve lasted, but it was
definitely a physical beaming rather than an astral projection. X
Anonymous asked: the way i see it- just like charmed said poltergiests are residual energy of evil that is vanquished- wisps are the residual energy of people that have died
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Pat Shand: Yes. An important distinction is that the wisp is not malicious, though clearly dangerous. X
Anonymous asked: Hi Pat! i miss Magic School as a location this season, are you going to use this place soon? and are you going to explore her history?
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Pat Shand: Hey! I have to admit that I’m a bit fatigued by the idea of Magic School. I’m doing the fantasy school thing in my current run on Grimm Fairy Tales with Arcane Acre, so I’m
not really revving to explore a similar location in Charmed. We will see it, but I personally don’t think it needs much exploration within the specific story that I’m telling here. EDIT: I’ll
add that the first issue originally had a scene at the school, but I cut it for pacing. X
Anonymous asked: As a comics writer do you have restrictions and / or a direction imposed by zenescope? For Robyn Hood Charmed for exemple, or are you free to manage your projects as you want?
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Pat Shand: (...) With Charmed, because Paul and I are editors on that one as well, we handle the editorial there. Paul will give suggestions, and CBS will give
notes. There hasn’t been any major notes, except CBS initially didn’t think that Charmed #7 was going in the direction it needed to go. And they were right, so I re-worked it into
a completely different story, which I now think is 100% better. But everyone is very, very hands off on Charmed, which has been nice. (...) X
Anonymous asked: i can't believe the day has finally come, after 10 long seasons, to see inside my favorite ever universe a gay relationship...i almost want to cry, i'm just litterally the happiest fan in the world right now (That was my dream just behind Prue's return of course). There are no words strong enough to say how grateful i am, but now the pression on your shoulders is enormous, this pairing has to be amazing, i really hope they're becoming regulars cause c'mon, it's Tyler and Hakeem (gay and black)!
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Pat Shand: Yay! I’m so glad you’re so glad. Honestly, I’m not feeling much pressure about the relationship. I love writing Tyler/Kareem as much as all of the established characters,
and they both come very naturally to me. Tyler is all yearning and anxious and excited and daring, and Kareem is super thoughtful and stoic and cerebral. They’re swell. X
Pat Shand:
- Okay, so I wanted to not write about this. Online comments aren’t really something I think should be worth devoting much of my time or brainspace to, but… sigh. The feeling I have about some comments recently has grown from a mild annoyance to a weight on my chest. And I know that what I’m going to talk about is something that probably most writers deal with, and that the solution is not reading comments. But another part of being a writer, and being me, is the kinda maybe desperately searching for approval, love, snuggles, etc etc.
- Anyway, I recently showed a page from Charmed where Tyler is holding hands with a new character, Kareem. They’re both guys, obvi. Earlier, someone asked me if I was going to introduce LGBT characters into Charmed, and I’d mentioned that this couple was in the works. I didn’t think there would be much of a thing about it because Charmed, I felt, has always had such a huge queer fanbase that it felt super at odds to me that there weren’t already queer characters.
- But, and this is a tangent, I didn’t write Tyler and Kareem in as a couple to fill a void. I wrote them because I want my work to reflect the world I live in, who I am, and… well, in my head, Tyler and Kareem are two gay men in love. I didn’t put much thought into pairing them beyond that, because it made sense to me. There’s no build-up, no tension, no coming out — they’re just together, because I envisioned it, and I wanted it, and I wrote it. And then, suddenly, there’s this debate online about WHO’S GOING TO BE GAY — and I COMPLETELY understand that. Representation is super important, to me as a writer, person, reader… etc.
- Anyway.
- So, I put out the page because I loved the page. I know that the positivity and the loving, glowy, shiny hearts of the Charmed fandom far outshine any of the hatred, but I saw some comments that made me pretty angry. There was a little ignorance bouncing around, but what really got me was the way that someone asked why we’re including gay characters — how that furthers the story.
- Which is bullshit. Obviously, if you’re an intelligent person, you know that’s bullshit, but I’m here being all choir-preachy. And yet, I’m all with the chest-weightiness — so I carry on. Bear with me.
- Most of the established characters of the show are heterosexual. That has played a major part of the narrative, because all of their romance arcs have been heterosexual. However, if I posted an image of Piper and Leo holding hands — which I’ve done — I can promise that I would never see a comment complaining about pushing heterosexuality in our faces. No one would say, “Who cares if they’re straight? This doesn’t matter to the story!” The reverse, present in the comments I saw, is a covert type of homophobia that normalizes LGBT romance and people as “other” — worse, as extraneous, a distraction to the “real” story. And, frankly, fuck that.
- I understand that there are people that do feel that way, and that anything I’m saying here won’t change that. However, while I don’t want to do those people any favors, I’m compelled to warn them that my work will always make them uncomfortable. I don’t want to write a single story that fits into what they see as “normal.” My characters aren’t that, because the world isn’t that. Because I am not that. My work will always be queer, and I cordially invite you to, as quickly as possible, stop reading my work if that bothers you.
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And, to end on a positive note, thank you to the people who reach out with positivity, nuance, and love. X
