I’ve known Christopher Golden for over a decade and besides being one of the nicest guys around, he’s one of the most prolific and hardworking writers I’ve ever known.
With his latest novel, Red Hands, available now, Chris has collaborated once again with Mike Mignola, co-writing the first Baltimore spin-off, Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens with artists Bridgit Connell and Michelle Madsen.
Chris took some time from his busy schedule to discuss Lady Baltimore, his upcoming projects and what he binged on during the pandemic.
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FOG!: When you completed Baltimore: The Red Kingdom, were you and Mike already planning to revisit the Sofia Valk character?
Christopher Golden: Right around the time we finished the final issue, the ideas were spinning in my head. The first time I suggested it to Mike, right around that time, he brushed it off as a joke, I think. But the next time we talked about it and I explained what I had in mind—that it really worked, that it not only fit the story we’d been telling and elevated Sofia as a character, but also created the perfect stage for us to explore all of the ideas and mythology we’d been building up to in both series (Baltimore and Joe Golem)—he sparked to it and we started planning.
This takes place thirteen years after the previous Baltimore series. How has Sofia changed in the interim and was it always intended to take on the Lady Baltimore mantle?
It really was just an organic evolution of the character and her relationship to Baltimore. They’d become so close, they’d trusted one another so fully, that it felt like a natural evolution for the character and for our story.
Sofia was born into a small town in Estonia and had little chance at education, at getting much out of life. She married an abusive man who tormented her even after his death. But she was always tough and smart and clever. When she met Baltimore and his team for the first time, she realized that not only was there a much larger fight between good and evil than the one she’d known, but that there was also a much larger world out there for her to explore.
I think she always knew she had more in her than her life had asked of her, and during her time with Baltimore, she embraced all of that. She became a fighter, a warrior. She educated herself, and she did that in the presence of men who—with one exception in Judge Rigo—treated her as an equal, as a person with value unto herself.
Since Baltimore’s death and the destruction of the Red King, and since inheriting Baltimore’s estate, she has risen to the challenge both of becoming Lady Baltimore, a baroness, and of continuing to fight the darkness despite being an ordinary flesh-and-blood human being, all too mortal. Becoming Baltimore’s widow gave her the opportunity to continue to grow into the woman she always had the capacity to become, and now she has.
Baltimore originally started as a novel before comics. Do you have any interest continuing in writing Lord or Lady Baltimore in another book?
It’s definitely something that swirls around in my brain, the possibility of doing another novel set in the Outerverse, but right now we’re focused on the comics.
What else do you have coming up?
Alongside Lady Baltimore, we’ll be debuting Tales from the Outerverse, which consists of five issues that break out characters from this era in the Outerverse and give them their own spotlight. Cojacaru the Skinner is two issues, Imogen of the Wyrding Way is a one-shot, and then we wrap it up with two issues of The Golem Walks Among Us! (I insisted on that exclamation point).
Mike and I have a lot of other stuff coming this year and next, but I’m not allowed to discuss those until they’re announced.
My most recent novel, Red Hands, came out in December.
I’m working on a couple of original audio series for Audible, and some TV stuff is in development. Basically, lots of stuff I can’t talk about just yet.
What did you binge on during the pandemic?
My son Daniel and I have watched dozens upon dozens of horror movies, from the brilliant to the absurd to the awful. Brian Keene and I do our podcast “Defenders Dialogue” every week, and most recently we’ve been reading through the Bronze Age Man Thing series.
Mostly though, I continue to get more and more into the Golden Age of Hollywood. I DVR movies off Turner Classic Movies and watch twenty or thirty minutes of one each morning with my tea before I start work, so about two classic films every week. I’m loving it, and love to take a deep dive into the stories from that era.
Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens #1 is available
from comic stores and via digital at comiXology
