‘Dune: Part Three’ Cowriter Brian K. Vaughan Has a New Comic on the Way

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‘Dune: Part Three’ Cowriter Brian K. Vaughan Has a New Comic on the Way

Brian K. Vaughan would like to apologize. He knows everyone is dying for details about Dune: Part Three, which he cowrote with director Denis Villeneuve, but his lips are pretty sealed until December 18 when the film finally hits theaters.

布莱恩·K·沃恩（Brian K. Vaughan）想要道歉。他知道每个人都渴望了解《沙丘3》的细节，这部电影由他和导演丹尼斯·维伦纽瓦（Denis Villeneuve）共同编剧，但在12月18日电影最终上映之前，他对此守口如瓶。

“Sorry to be coy,” he says as we’re about to leave the New York coffee shop where we’ve been chatting. “I hope the day will come where I’m able to say much, much more. It was truly so awesome. I can’t believe it happened.”

“抱歉我这么遮遮掩掩，”当我们即将离开聊天的那家纽约咖啡馆时，他说道。“我希望有一天我能说出更多更多内容。这真的太棒了。我简直不敢相信它发生了。”

Vaughan is in the city for New York Comic Con, but not to talk about Dune. Ostensibly, he came to the convention to talk about Paper Girls, the comic he created with Cliff Chiang that was turned into a 2022 Amazon Prime Video series. During the Paper Girls panel, however, the pair announced that they’re working on a new comic, Roam, a superhero sci-fi series set to come out in February of next year.

沃恩来到这座城市是为了参加纽约动漫展，但不是为了谈论《沙丘》。表面上，他来参加大会是为了谈论《纸女孩》（Paper Girls），这是他和克里夫·蒋（Cliff Chiang）共同创作的漫画，该漫画在2022年被改编成了亚马逊Prime Video的剧集。然而，在《纸女孩》的小组讨论会上，两人宣布他们正在创作一部名为《漫游》（Roam）的新漫画，这是一部定于明年2月发行的超级英雄科幻系列作品。

Roam, Vaughan tells me, came from a deep desire to work with Chiang again. They’d considered doing a short eight-page story or maybe a one-shot, but eventually they said “Fuck it. Let’s do an ongoing series.”

沃恩告诉我，《漫游》源于他再次与蒋合作的强烈愿望。他们曾考虑过创作一个八页的短篇故事或单行本，但最终他们决定：“去他的。我们来做一个连载系列吧。”

Vaughan has the kind of career writers of a certain ilk would kill for. He started working on comics in the 1990s and has been the pen behind favorites like Saga, Y: The Last Man, and Marvel’s Runaways. (Those last two got turned into TV series; the outlier, Saga, is a story people have wanted to see adapted for years.) He also served as a writer on Lost and created CBS’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome.

沃恩拥有那种特定类型的作家梦寐以求的职业生涯。他从20世纪90年代开始从事漫画创作，是《沙加》（Saga）、《Y：最后一个男人》（Y: The Last Man）和漫威《离家童盟》（Runaways）等热门作品的幕后推手。（后两部作品被改编成了电视剧；而《沙加》则是一个人们多年来一直期待被改编的故事。）他还曾担任《迷失》（Lost）的编剧，并创作了CBS对斯蒂芬·金（Stephen King）作品《穹顶之下》（Under the Dome）的改编剧集。

Still, his heart remains in comics. “I think sometimes people are like, ‘Oh, are you just going to sell out, Vaughan? Are you just going to go to Hollywood full-time?’” he says. “But I’m only able to do work in Hollywood because I have comics.”

尽管如此，他的心依然在漫画上。“我想有时人们会说，‘哦，沃恩，你是不是要出卖自己了？你是不是要全职去好莱坞了？’”他说。“但我之所以能在好莱坞工作，是因为我有漫画。”

Here, he speaks about Roam, his worries about AI, and maybe a little bit about Dune: Part Three as well.

在这里，他谈到了《漫游》、他对人工智能的担忧，以及可能还有一点关于《沙丘3》的内容。

On Roam, his forthcoming comic with Cliff Chiang: It’s completely unlike Paper Girls, completely unlike anything I’ve ever done. It’s set in the distant, distant future. The logline, as it were, is that in the future, everyone will get to be a superhero, but only while they’re young. We’re trying not to reveal too much more than that.

关于他与克里夫·蒋即将推出的漫画《漫游》：它与《纸女孩》完全不同，与我做过的任何事情都完全不同。故事设定在遥远的未来。用一句话概括就是，在未来，每个人都能成为超级英雄，但仅限于年轻的时候。我们尽量不透露更多信息。

I remember seeing The Matrix, and having no idea what the fuck it was gonna be about. That was such a delight. So we’re trying to do that here. I’ve been doing this for 31 years. I started when I was a teenager. I have a Spider-Man story here and there. I did a little Batman, and Ex Machina was my sci-fi political comic that sort of deconstructed the superhero. But this is certainly my first true superhero book.

我记得看《黑客帝国》时，完全不知道它到底讲什么。那真是一种享受。所以我们在这里也想尝试这样做。我从事这一行已经31年了。我从十几岁就开始了。我偶尔写过蜘蛛侠的故事。我写过一点蝙蝠侠，而《机械姬》（Ex Machina）是我那部某种程度上解构了超级英雄的科幻政治漫画。但这绝对是我第一部真正的超级英雄作品。

On his fears about AI impacting comics, film, and TV: It’s terrifying. My friends who work in previsualization and as storyboard artists, these jobs are going away. I’ve heard about editors going away as well. Show business is a business, first and foremost. I’m lucky to sort of have been grandfathered in. I think there will always be people who are interested in bespoke human-made stories. But the future is terrifying and unknowable, and coming at us very, very quickly.

关于他对人工智能影响漫画、电影和电视的担忧：这太可怕了。我那些从事预演和分镜师工作的朋友，这些工作正在消失。我听说编辑的工作也在消失。演艺圈首先是一门生意。我很幸运，算是被“祖父条款”保护了下来。我认为总会有人对定制的人类创作故事感兴趣。但未来是可怕且不可知的，而且正非常、非常迅速地向我们袭来。

I’m heartened by the fact I’ve got two teenagers who are so disgusted by AI and grossed out if they ever hear I used it—and I’ve certainly never used it for anything creative. But I do think we’re getting pretty close to the day that someone could be like, “I’m tired of waiting for the next issue. Give me the next issue of Saga.” That’s when you get to the point of, do you just want content, something that’s a distraction?

让我感到欣慰的是，我有两个十几岁的孩子，他们对人工智能感到非常厌恶，如果听说我用了它，他们会感到恶心——我当然从未在任何创作中使用过它。但我确实认为，我们正非常接近这样一天：有人可能会说，“我厌倦了等待下一期。给我《沙加》的下一期。”那时你就会面临一个问题：你只是想要内容，想要某种消遣吗？

In Roam there’s an element of this as well; AI is a component in the story. So, it’s something I guess I need to write about with my human meat machine to process, but I’m in the middle of thinking about it, as you are, every day.

在《漫游》中也有这个元素；人工智能是故事的一个组成部分。所以，我想我需要用我这台人类肉体机器来处理并书写它，但我正处于思考的过程中，就像你每天都在思考一样。

OK, a little bit about Dune: Part Three, which he has seen: I can’t say very much other than it’s a tremendous, insane, ridiculous honor to be involved with it, and my contributions are modest. Denis’ true cowriter on this is Frank Herbert. The novel is the star. And it’s obviously the greatest cast and crew ever assembled. It’s a fucking beautiful movie. It’s my favorite of the three. which I can say with genuine humility. I can’t say anything other than it’s just as wonderful as you can imagine.

好的，关于他已经看过的《沙丘3》：除了说能参与其中是一种巨大、疯狂、不可思议的荣幸，且我的贡献很微薄之外，我不能说太多。丹尼斯在这部电影中真正的共同编剧是弗兰克·赫伯特（Frank Herbert）。原著小说才是主角。而且这显然是有史以来最伟大的演员和剧组阵容。这是一部美得惊人的电影。这是三部曲中我最喜欢的一部，我可以真诚而谦逊地说。除了说它和你想象的一样精彩之外，我什么也不能说。

I got special thanks in the first movie. I was doing a tiny amount of consulting. I was working at Legendary [the media company that owns the rights to Dune] at the time, and they just invited me in to see an early cut, which was as fantastic as the finished product. But I just ended up talking to Denis, honestly. Never before has a director been that talented, also that decent and warm as a human being. I wasn’t anticipating getting this call at the beginning of three, but it’s obviously a call I could not refuse.

我在第一部电影中获得了特别鸣谢。我当时做了一点点咨询工作。我当时在传奇影业（拥有《沙丘》版权的媒体公司）工作，他们邀请我去看了一个早期剪辑版，它和成品一样精彩。但老实说，我最终只是和丹尼斯聊了聊。从来没有哪位导演既如此有才华，又作为一个人如此正派和温暖。我没预料到在第三部开始时会接到这个电话，但这显然是一个我无法拒绝的电话。

I should probably just be discreet at this point. The movie doesn’t need me to promote it. I’m reluctant to do anything that makes me sound more important to this process.

我现在可能应该保持谨慎。这部电影不需要我来宣传。我不愿做任何让自己听起来在这个过程中很重要的事情。

On the future of Hollywood: I am a small worker in the world of Hollywood. It is changing so rapidly that who knows what it’s gonna be like tomorrow, six months from now. But again, I’ve got teenagers and I see how delighted they were by Backrooms, by Obsession. It feels like Gen X has been force-feeding them a lot of my childhood stories that we have gussied up, and they are clearly hungry for something new.

关于好莱坞的未来：我是好莱坞世界里的一名小员工。它变化太快了，谁知道明天、六个月后会是什么样。但再说一次，我有十几岁的孩子，我看到他们对《后室》（Backrooms）和《痴迷》（Obsession）有多么着迷。感觉X世代一直在强行向他们灌输我们精心包装过的许多童年故事，而他们显然渴望一些新的东西。

On why he doesn’t write adaptations of his own comics: I’ve taken stabs at it in the past. Richard Price, the novelist, I once heard him say in response to “Why don’t you adapt your own stuff more?” that adapting your own work is like being a dentist and giving yourself a root canal. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. Let some other motherfucker handle that. I believe those were Mr. Price’s words.

关于为什么他不写自己漫画的改编作品：我过去尝试过。小说家理查德·普莱斯（Richard Price）在回答“为什么你不更多地改编自己的作品？”时，我曾听他说过，改编自己的作品就像牙医给自己做根管治疗。仅仅因为你能做，并不意味着你应该做。让别的混蛋去处理吧。我相信这就是普莱斯先生的原话。

It’s been constructive and a thrill to adapt other people, and I like getting to watch other people adapt me, but I’ve also been doing a lot of it for the

改编别人的作品既有建设性又令人兴奋，我也喜欢看别人改编我的作品，但我自己也已经做了很多……