Jenny Tyler and Zachary Gedden are chosen to defend us in our dreams – yet they are as mortal as we are.
Despite their fear, despite their weakness, they will not fail us while we sleep.
Episode 1 |
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Episode2
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Episode 3 |
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Episode 4 |
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Noted by Comics International for its “fractured storyline” and “chiaroscuro graphics” (it means ‘extremes of light and dark’ – we had to look it up as well). This series follows the struggles of two ordinary people given a fantastic task – to save individuals from their own worst aspects, from inside their dreams.Dream Time was created and written by Colin J Dinnie with the distinctive black and white artwork being provided by Iain Buchanan. The series introduces us to Zach, Jenny and the mysterious Dream Warden as well establishing Icelos, the Warden’s darker counterpart. Zach and Jenny travel from dream to dream; encountering worlds as diverse as a medieval castle, glamorous Hollywood and a child’s sci-fi fantasy; in each world they must discover what problems lie at the heart of the dreamer’s psyche and find a way to resolve them.
Series writer Colin J Dinnie gave this interview last year.
Dream Time – give us the bad movie tag line.
Its Jungian psychotherapy meets Quantum Leap, almost.
Issue 1 and 2 are out now, what has the response been like?
The reaction has been largely positive – especially for Iain’s art which has really blown people away because its such a dramatic style. I think people have found the story in issue 1 to be intriguing and confusing in equal parts. I really have to put my hands up and say, yes – its not the easiest thing to follow and I deliberately didn’t put all the answers in because it is the opening to an ongoing story.
How come there are two Issue 1s?
Ah, the original Black Cover version of Issue 1 came out in April last year. You could only buy it in Brighton and through Smallzone although we did get reviewed in Comics International, we got 5 out of 10. However the layout of the story was a bit too confusing – we were jumping around locations a lot and I think the readers just didn’t follow it. Which was totally my fault because I wrote it that way. So when the January 2003 launch came round we did a new version – with a white cover – which had some changes.
What changed specifically? Did Iain have to re-draw?
Iain made a couple of mainly cosmetic changes to the artwork. Most noticeably he added the grey tone to Zach and both the women in the final hospital scene suddenly had different haircuts!
The main difference was re-ordering the pages so it flowed a bit better and adding a little more dialogue and captions just so it was a bit clearer what was going on. I think I was so afraid to overwrite it that I ended up going the other way originally and under wrote it. The new version got 6 out of 10 in CI, lessons were learnt, and if you can get hold of the original black cover version then it might be worth something!
Where did the idea for Dream Time come from?
I was on the longest train journey of my life – from Birmingham up to the Edinburgh Festival on a weekend. I was in Carlisle at about midnight waiting for a connection that I found out later wasn’t coming. I started writing in my notebook about a couple dancing on a station platform, a man playing chess in Vietnam and a tall dark figure pulling them away. Those images then became the opening of issue 1.
The idea for the series as a whole is really the meanings of dreams. People believe that dreams are telling you about your life in a symbolic or metaphorical way. The psychologist Jung, who was a student of Freud, placed a lot of importance on the meanings of dreams in diagnosing psychological problems. I thought the natural extension of that would be to be able to go into peoples dreams and try to help them from inside the metaphorical reality of the dream.
Is Jung and his writings a big influence on the story?
I am using a lot of his ideas, but mainly as subtext to telling the story. There’s no point turning it into an essay and I’m quite happy to exaggerate or even contradict Jungian theory if it makes the comics more exciting!
What can we expect from the rest of the series?
Would it be churlish to say – the unexpected? Issue 3, which will be out in August, is set in 1930’s Hollywood. It’s a lighter story than the first one but there are darker undertones when we find out about the dreamer. Then Issue 4 goes into outer space, into the dreams of a child. The really great thing about this series is being able to go to pretty much any location you like. Literally anywhere you can dream of.
What happens after Issue 4?
In a way 4 wraps up the first story arc so after that there is going to be a bit of a break. But Dream Time will return – the plan at the moment is to have a different artist do each issue between 5 and 8 and then maybe Iain will come back for an arc. Possibly we will wrap it up then but who knows.
So there is a definite ending to Dream Time?
There’s a payoff all right. But I think there is plenty of travelling to do before we get there.
A compilation is planned for a later date.
