Think of him as Harry Potter's more real-world cousin. Replace wizards with spies, sorcery with spycraft, and Hogwarts with MI6, and you'll start to get the idea of who Alex Rider is.

While the bulk of young adult fiction has focused on fantasy, the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, which launched with 2000's Stormbreaker and still continuing, six books later with Ark Angel, with a seventh, Snakehead forthcoming.

The quick version - in Stormbreaker, Alex learns that his uncle (recently deceased) was in fact a secret agent for MI6 who was killed investigating a plot which involves computers, gadgets, and colorful villains.

Still largely unknown in the US, Alex Rider's popularity is due for a boost shortly with the release of Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, starring Alex Pettyfer as Rider. Currently, the film has opened in the United Kingdom, Austraila, China, and Hong Kong, and due for a US theatrical release on October 13th.

Oh - and did we mention the graphic novel?

That one's (0-399-24633-9, published by Philomel, $14.99) due out on October 19th, and is written by Antony Johnston.

For a brief Alex Rider primer and look at the graphic novel version of Stormbreaker, we caught up with Johnston.

Newsarama: Starting at the ground floor, Antony - even though the books are out here, Stormbreaker - as well as Alex Rider - are still largely unknown properties in the United States. Short version - who is Alex Rider?

Antony Johnston: The very short version is that he's a teenage James Bond.
The slightly longer version is that he's a fourteen-year-old boy forcibly recruited by MI6 after the death of his uncle, who was an MI6 agent. What's notable, though, is that this isn't another Teen Agent/Cody Banks/Spy Kids thing. The Alex Rider books aren't spoofs, comedy, or camp. They're straight-up, action-packed spy thrillers that just happen to be written for teenagers.
That's one of the reasons I agreed to do the graphic novel adaptations - these books are bloody brilliant, and if they'd been around when I was a teenager I'd have lapped them up. And I know everyone thinks I'm saying that because I'm doing the adaptations, but it's really not. They're brilliant.
It's also worth pointing out that Alex Rider isn't as unknown as you might think in the US. There are six books in the series so far, and they're multi-million best sellers around the world. I believe several have made the New York Times bestseller list, and when Anthony Horowitz, the novelist who created Alex Rider, recently did a tour in the US he was practically mobbed by kids everywhere he appeared.

NRAMA: And yet, I'd wager, you'd still find a lot of blank faces when his - or Alex's name is mentioned to the parents. So - speaking of the adaptation, how did you get on the project?

AJ: Stormbreaker: The Graphic Novel is an adaptation of the movie screenplay, which was adapted from the original novel by Horowitz himself - he's a screenwriter as well as novelist. Yes, the screenplay is different in many ways to the novel, but it's very similar in just as many ways. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't comment on that, but the screenplay was a really good adaptation, and I worked from that.
I landed the job in a way most writers dream of, to be honest - the editor in charge of the adaptation at Walker Books - who publish the original novels, and also the graphic novel - called me up and asked if I'd be interested in writing it.
Turns out the Alan Moore adaptations I did for Avatar - The Courtyard, Another Suburban Romance, The Hypothetical Lizard and so on - got me placed on a 'has experience doing adaptations' shortlist at Walker, and after some discussion I was offered the job. By this time I'd read the novel and loved it, so I leapt at the chance.

NRAMA: Can you explain a little on how you adapt? Is it simply a matter of selecting scenes and moments that best tell the story?

AJ: The method differs from project to project - and, as it's turned out in the case of the Alex Rider adaptations, sometimes even from book to book.
Most of the adaptations I've done have been pretty faithful, which I actually prefer instead of going off and doing something completely different. There's nothing particularly complicated about the process I use, but it is exhaustive.
The first step is to read the original, at least twice, right the way through. Then I make general notes on anything that leaps out at me - characters, scenes, and so on. Next I go through the book/screenplay/whatever and summarize each scene in a paragraph or two. That gets me a very long text document with the entire plot in one summary, not unlike a movie treatment.
Then I start breaking that treatment down further into individual comic pages. Normally way too many, so the final step is to "cut and compress" - delete scenes that aren't essential to the plot, compress long scenes into short ones by summarizing dialogue, that sort of thing. Again, this is all done while constantly re-reading and referring to the original. By the time I'm done, I can recite the entire original's plot backwards.
Anyway, at the end of it all I'm left with an outline document showing the broad strokes, page by page, of how the comic script will be paced. And using that as my primary reference, I start to script - again reading through the original as I go.
Like I said, there's nothing very mystical about it, it's just bloody hard work. But the end result is, in my experience, a faithful and 'spiritually correct' adaptation - something that may not be faithful to every word, but is faithful to the spirit and intentions of the original.

NRAMA: How does this rank in terms of difficultly in regards to other adaptations you've done?

AJ: Stormbreaker was certainly easier than some I've done - adapting from a screenplay is generally simpler than from a novel, because there's less content you have to fit in - and stuck very closely to the original. I don't think any entire scenes were omitted at all, although many were compressed.
That's not always possible, though - the sequel, Point Blanc, is adapted from the original novel. So we've had to make quite a few cuts simply to fit the story into the graphic novel page count. In those cases you simply select the best and most important scenes for the story. You pare away at the peripherals, stuff that may be good background detail or an interesting diversion in the novel, but which doesn't actually affect the main plot. It's a bit like writing a screenplay adaptation in itself, really.
As for pitfalls, the one thing I've learnt doing adaptations the past few years is simply to let it breathe. Better to adapt five key scenes and give them the room they need to be told well, than cram ten scenes into the same page count and treat them poorly.

NRAMA: Did you have much contact with or access to Anthony Horowitz while you were working on it?

AJ: I actually haven't had any direct contact with Anthony at all. He's the most prolific writer I know (besides Geoff Johns...) and I'd have to make an appointment three weeks in advance just to phone him! We've just gone back and forth via our editor at Walker, and that's worked out fine. Anthony has final say over everything Alex Rider-related, and he understand how the adaptation process works, so it's all gone very smoothly.

NRAMA: The art style is very evocative of manga. Did that affect how you wrote it?

AJ: It's almost disappointing to confess to it, but no - I didn't change my writing style or methods at all.
But I think that in itself proves that comics are comics, regardless of the art style employed, and we should stop fumbling around trying to discern between 'manga' and 'euro' and 'comics' and whatnot. It's meaningless, and the only people it really matters to work in marketing departments.

NRAMA: Point taken. So - the second film is in the works, but despite that, Alex Rider seems like a character that's ripe to be in comics. Any more Alex comics coming - any chances of original works?

AJ: As I said above, there'll definitely be a second Alex Rider graphic novel - Point Blanc, adapted from the second book. The Stormbreaker graphic novel has already done well enough in Europe that the sequel is guaranteed. Walker have expressed an interest in doing the entire series, but I don't know if that's final - they might be waiting to see how well Point Blanc does, first. If they do happen, though, I'll be first in line to write them.

Hamarosan!

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