When you're working in comics, there's an incredible rigidity. Its chapters can be as long or as short as they need to be. Structurally, a novel can really be as long or as short as it needs to be. It’s a completely different language for many reasons. How is creating a graphic novel different from writing a novel?

So that doesn't lend itself to a comic as well as Charlotte's power, where Enid, my incredible illustrator, can turn every reflective surface in a panel into a second set of images. That can be interpreted visually, but it's completely invisible.

Victor, one of the main protagonists of the books, has the ability to control pain. It's a horrifying power, but not just that-it's a horrifying power that is so intensely visual and lends perfectly to a graphic medium. So I had to figure out what circumstance puts Charlotte into the situation where she has a near-death experience that leads to this ability. You can't just give the power to anyone you almost have to retroactively figure out the person from the power. The way that the powers work in this world is that they're tied to near-death experiences. But I always was looking for someone to give this power to. I ended up just stopping for a minute to write the backstories for the gang leaders, and that's where I got the Victor and Eli story which would go on to be the series. This character had this ability to see deaths in reflective surfaces, and I loved that ability. In the first iteration of Vicious, I had as my main character a man who arrives in this city and two warring groups of people try to recruit him, the Heroes and the Villains. Schwab: It’s the very first power I ever created for the Villains universe. Publishers Weekly: The power you gave Charlotte is a truly horrifying one: When she looks at someone’s reflection, she can vividly foresee the moment of their death.

Vicious ve schwab series