The Return of Queenie Chan’s ‘The Dreaming’
Aussie imprint IPI Comics and manga-style writer/artist creator Queenie Chan have announced the return of Queenie’s original manga series ‘The Dreaming’. The first of this beloved 3-volume manga which will be available in stores in 2023. This announcement will also leave Queenie’s fan salivating for new content which is also promised very soon with a fourth volume of brand new stories.
The Dreaming will be released internationally (via IPI Comics) in new black and white paperbacks, with new covers, brand new pages, and updated art and minor rewrites that better reflect the current times.
‘The Dreaming’ is a mystery-horror series about a pair of twin sisters who arrive at an isolated boarding school deep in the Australian bush—where schoolgirls are known to have vanished over the years. Billed as a Lovecraftian take on the cult classic ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, this is a trailblazing, young adult series that features a majority female cast, and a trio of Eurasian and indigenous Australians as lead characters.
Queenie Chan will be supporting the new volumes in 2023 with her scheduled appearances at bookstores and conventions around Australia – with dates and events to be confirmed and announced soon. We caught up with Queenie to learn more about what “The Dreaming” has in store for manga fans worldwide.
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A Quick Sit Down with Queenie Chan
: Thanks for sitting down with me today, Queenie. Your original Manga series, “The Dreaming” was originally published by TOKYOPOP all the way back in 2005. (Now I feel old) How does it feel to be bringing back this mystery horror series?
Queenie Chan: I’ve been trying to get the rights back to “The Dreaming” ever since TOKYOPOP shut down their publishing department in 2011, so it’s pretty amazing that the rights have left TOKYOPOP and gone to a new publisher so many years later. I’m obviously really happy about it, but more importantly, it gives me a chance to update the story slightly to suit a more modern sensibility, and also rewrite the story a bit so that it can accommodate a continuation.
“The Dreaming” was originally meant to go on for longer than 3 volumes, but I was told to end it definitively when in the middle of vol2, since it was originally slated to be 3 volumes by the publisher (and they seemed to be in a bit of financial trouble by 2007). I had 2 versions of the story planned out in case I had to end it in vol3, and when that DID happen, I wrote the original story so that it appeared to end.
After that there was a 20-page short story in the Collected Edition (which came out in 2010) that was meant to act as a bridge between part 1 and part 2. I’m glad that the rights have returned, and I have a chance to do part 2 of the story, depending on sales of part 1.
: Aussie imprint IPI Comics will be republishing the first three volumes of The Dreaming and then you’ll be returning to this story with a brand new fourth volume. Given the passage of time, will art imitate life, in that the twin sisters of your story would’ve observed how life changes much like you have?
Queenie Chan: The original, longer version of the story I planned was always meant to be set in two different time periods – the time when the girls were teenagers, and years later when they were adults nearing 30 (the age I was when I first started writing “The Dreaming”). This is clear with the bridging story from the Collected edition. The reason why this gap existed was that I wanted to explore how trauma would change a person, and how events from the past would alter how people develop and the relationships they have with others.
Of course, the second part of the story is also set in a rebuilt version of the school, and has a lot of shenanigans going on there as well, so the original characters will return as they try and deal with this very different set of problems in a place that is a replica of the original school (but is now a hospital). One thing is clear though – the original plan of the story I had for part2 has definitely changed over the years, and is different from the original.
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: The Dreaming was originally billed as a Lovecraftian take on a classic Aussie cult story called ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock.’ Let’s try and expand the audience here, what aspects of this story will non-Australian readers be drawn in by?
Queenie Chan: “Picnic at Hanging Rock” is a 1961 novel about the disappearance of a group of female students in the Australian bush, so as a story, it plays on fears that Australians have about the bush, as well as the more generalised interest that people around the world have in mysterious disappearances. People are always interested in the supernatural and the occult, especially when it’s presented in the style of a mystery filled with pre-established lore, and that’s where the works of HP Lovecraft will come in.
Now, Lovecraft may have been a racist who was a product of his society at the time, but his work has been highly influential for many horror authors (including Stephen King and Alan Moore), and he also has a lot of fans (myself included). To be clear, I’m drawing from Lovecraft’s “Dream Cycle” rather the Cthulhu mythos for this series, though the two have some overlap. This is deliberate – I think the “Dream Cycle” is lesser known, and more dark fantasy than straight-up horror, which gives it more leeway in writing.
: Is there anything you can tell me about the fourth volume yet?
Queenie Chan: Volume 4 is a side-story that is set in the same universe, and located in a remote manor in northern New South Wales along the Queensland border. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s a psychological-horror & romance story that involves characters that are related (by family) to a character from the original story (and also the additional 20-page short story). It’s also intended to be a single-volume standalone story which I’ve wanted to do for a long time. A psychological-horror & romance story is the rarest of genre mashups, so this will be quite interesting.
: What about Australian comics and manga as a whole has changed since you’ve been in the industry and what about these changes continues to inspire you?
Queenie Chan: I think there’s just a lot more people creating comics and being interested in comics when I first started, which can only be a good thing. The interest that younger audiences have in comics is particularly important, regardless of whether you’re from western comics, manga, or webtoons – all of which get along quite well now, unlike the earlier animosity between various communities from when I first started.
The involvement of people from all generations can only point to the increasing popularity and respectability of the medium of sequential art, and I’m hoping that the re-release of “The Dreaming” can interest people in telling more stories that is based on Australian culture (or at least set in Australia). There’s a lot of comics/manga that is from overseas these days, so it’ll be nice to see locally-produced comics getting attention and engaging Australians.
: Have we got release dates for Volume 4 yet and where can Manga and Comics readers find you?
Queenie Chan: There’s a tentative release date for vol4, but I don’t want to disclose it since it’s a standalone volume and I want to spend some time in getting it right and not rushing it. I’ve got the story down, so hopefully it won’t be too long after the release of Volume 3. Regarding my progress and what else I’m doing, you can check out my website.
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About Queenie Chan
Queenie Chan was originally born in Hong Kong, and migrated to Australia as a child. After her first published work ‘The Dreaming’, she would work as a graphic novel illustrator for Dean Koontz on ‘Odd Thomas’, and for fantasy author Kylie Chan on ‘Small Shen’. She is currently working on a biographical series called ‘Women Who Were Kings’, while also doing a PhD at Macquarie University. See more of her work at www.queeniechan.com
She has also co-created and released a tale of the character Cosmosia (with writer Naomi Hatchman) in the SuperAustralians graphic chapter novel, which has been planned for an international release in 2023 by IPI.
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