Adding to their lineup of literary adaptations (The Hedge Knight, Dragonlance: The Legend of Huma), Dabel Brothers Productions has joined with Orson Scott Card to adapt the novel Red Prophet from the writer’s The Tales of Alvin Maker series. The novel will be adapted into a six issue miniseries by writer Roland Bernard Brown (who was hand-picked by Card), and artist Renato Arlem.

The novel’s setting is in alternate American history where folk magic is real, and Alvin Maker has a fateful meeting with a Shaw-Nee named Lolla-Wossiky. Following the meeting of the two, Lolla-Wossiky becomes Tenskwa-Tawa, the Red Prophet, and Maker learns that he must use his powers to help others, rather than harm. Both Maker and Red Prophet’s enlightened frames of mind are challenged however, when a war begins to brew between Prophet’s brother, Ta-Kumsaw and the frontier forces led by Governor William Henry Harrison, leaving the two new friends stuck in the middle.

“Red Prophet is, without a doubt, one of my favorite novels,” said Sean J. Jordan, who is editing the adaptation. “Mr. Card took a very complicated conflict in history, changed some of the circumstances, and wove a tale that seemed so real and so important that I had to read it twice just to grasp the fullness of it all. By bringing it into the visual medium, we’re hoping not only to retell the story in classic comic book style, but also to portray the characters with the same amount of depth and gravity that emanates from the novel itself.”

Telling the story in a classic comic style, Jordan explained, will be one of the challenges behind the adaptation. “Some of the chapters are told like they’re coming from an old frontier storyteller,” he said, “while others sound like they’re coming from a Native American who is having trouble understanding the frontiersmens’ way of doing things. We’re working hard to find a balance so that each issue feels like part of the same story, even if the narrative style changes from chapter to chapter. Fortunately, Roland has been supplying Renato with some great ideas to make this book a fun read.”

“Renato’s got a great classic style,” said Ernst Dabel, President of Dabel Brothers Production, “and he’s bringing a lot of visual oomph to this title. We felt that a book set in history like Red Prophet should have a ‘Great Illustrated Classics’ kind of feel to it, and the end result is fantastic. There’s a lot of grand imagery in the first issue that fits the style of the writing perfectly, and the second issue, which offers a neat visual interpretation of the “black noise” that clouds Lolla-Wossiky’s thoughts, is looking even better.”

Issue #1 of DB Pro’s adaptation of Red Prophet is due in stores in March.