What came first as an idea - the Oz novel or graphic novel? Was it always planned that there would be two?

Not at the beginning. Early on, I had just decided to pitch it as a comic book because it just seemed like such a natural story to do as a comic, and I thought visually it would be great.

I wanted to know what that story was, what happened in the time between [Oz] departing and returning. But then... I was talking to my editor at Pocket, and I said, "You know, it would make a great book, what do you think about it?"

Her response was essentially [that] as long as it was alright with Dark Horse, they would be happy to do it, and as long as the book didn�t beat the comic book into the marketplace, that was fine.

So, the book is completely different, and I actually think the book is a much better read than the comic. I expected the comic to feel bigger, and it doesn�t. There were elements to the story that I wanted to include that it didn�t seem to make sense to use in the comic.

When I went to write the book, I wanted to try to get that classic American Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn sense of departing your home, leaving everything behind on a search for self. There�s something classic about that that I really enjoyed which wasn�t really in the comic.

Plus I really liked [werewolf hunter] Cain and I wanted to use him, so that whole element was added. And you get to see more of Oz�s life.

It was so difficult to write a novel over 300 pages where your main character, the protagonist, is one of the few characters with speaking parts in the entire book [who] doesn�t say anything.

Did you want to make it more dialogue-based?

Well, it couldn�t be, it just couldn�t be. And it�s funny, because in interviews people would always ask, "Who�s your favourite character to write, who�s the hardest character to write?" and my answer was always Oz.

[He�s] the most difficult character to write, and now here I am, the masochist, writing an entire novel around this guy. And I hope that he comes off in character. That was my biggest fear, that I would have to give him so much dialogue that he wasn�t in character.