The author of two of the Supernatural novels and the senior editor at BenBella Books talk about the new anthology of in-depth essays that cover the fan favorite series through its third season…

Edited by Supernatural.tv, and featuring an introduction by that site’s former Webmaster Kittsbud (aka Dawn), In the Hunt is the latest title in the Smart Pop series, which has also produced volumes on House, Spider-Man, Buffy, James Bond and too many other franchises to mention. Indeed, the series is a good match for genre master DeCandido, who, in addition to the Supernatural titles, has penned novels on Star Trek, CSI: NY, and (of course) Buffy, and has helped adapt numerous other properties across media. Unlike with other Smart Pop titles developed under Leah Wilson’s direction, this time DeCandido is not a contributing writer but instead provides the foreword to this thought-provoking collection. In doing so, he sets the tone perfectly, stating that Supernatural, given all of its obvious elements of appeal, is still “much, much better than it needs to be.”

The rest of the book, 22 (!) essays in all, goes on to prove this point beautifully. In fact, look for a more detailed Firefox review soon—I’m still getting my head around some of the pieces—but in the meantime listen in as we rap about a book that deserves to be required reading for all Supernatural fans… as well as their friends who still don’t get it.

Firefox News: First off, congratulations on such a great book. In fact, it’s so good that it doesn’t just help me think about Supernatural in new ways but about a whole range of pop culture and genre stuff differently. But tell me, were any folks surprised (or not surprised) when they heard that this was the newest installment in the Smart Pop series? And why?

Leah: Thank you! I got quite a few “finally!” responses, for sure, when I mentioned we were working on something for Supernatural. For me, it was a natural fit: a smart, well-done, internally consistent show with a passionate fanbase. And while the “passionate fanbase” element was something that, yes, made it a better risk financially, it also pointed to exactly how smart, well-done, and internally consistent the show really is. There was also already a strong tradition of meta in the fandom when we started the book, which showed the show could handle a lot of in-depth analysis.

One thing I really like is the contrarian flavor of the essays. Not only are they not mindlessly fannish (e.g., “here are my top ten episodes”) but they also articulate ideas that might be counterintuitive to some garden variety fans—yet do so from a perspective that’s still uniquely a fan’s. So which one or two essays were the most eye-opening for you? Not necessarily your favorites, but rather the ones that made you think, “Whoa, I never saw that coming…”

Leah: Very glad to hear that! One of the goals in any of our Smart Pop titles is to surprise; if you don’t find something in the essays that makes you see a character or a storyline or an overarching theme in a new way (whether you’re a “garden-variety” fan or way more hardcore), then we’re doing something wrong. For me, I’d say Jacob Clifton’s “Spreading Disaster” and Dodger Winslow’s “The Burden of Being Sammy” changed the way I saw the show the most. Jacob’s written for us a few other times before, and he never fails to blow my mind with the connections he picks up on and the way he weaves them into a totally new way oflooking at whatever issue he takes on.And that was a particularly good thing in this case, with him taking on the argument that Supernatural isn’t nearly as anti-feminist as many critics suggest. It’s a hard argument to make, even for the most Supernatural-devoted—and he does it convincingly. Dodger Winslow actually came to me with her essay, and I couldn’t have been happier she did. Her essay puts Sam at the center of not just the show, but of our experience as viewers—in a way that’s clever and dense and just generally incredible.

Keith: Well, the essay I liked the best, as a former women's studies minor in college, was Mary Borsellino's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jo the Monster Killer," but that didn't really open my eyes so much as more eloquently express one of my own critiques of the show. In terms of the question you actually asked, I'd have to say Tanya Huff's "We're Not Exactly the Bradys," which made me reconsider my position that John Winchester was a sucky father….

While reading In the Hunt I realized a casual viewer like myself would never pick up on some of the themes the contributors did: you really need to watch a series over a long haul to notice these interesting threads and evolutions. For this reason, paradoxically, to be a fan in the deepest sense must you already be a fan? That is, first drawn in by the cool monsters/demons, humor, or good-looking actors (a point Keith speaks to in his foreword) and only gradually discover the subtext? Or is it right there to observe in even small samples?

Leah: You know, I think there are really two different ways to get good, meaningful subtext.The first is the “fan” method—spending a lot of time with a show (or book, or whatever else). Steeping yourself in something lets you make connections (between episodes, between events, between characters) that you can’t make without that kind of investment of time. It adds a depth and passion to analysis that you really can’t get any other way. The second is the more “academic” method—imposing a strong analytical framework to your experience of a show. When you’re looking at a show through a certain lens, you’re likely to pick up on things that other viewers won’t. I think Randall Jensen’s essay and Carol Poole’s essay do something like this: approach Supernatural from their particular disciplines, and come away with insights that wouldn’t have occurred to me no matter how many times I re-watched episodes. In cases like this, you can “get away” with a smaller sample. But the best and most interesting analyses, I suspect, are always going to be ones that draw effectively on both methods.

Keith: Leah is correct: there are many different levels of fandom, and different degrees of obsession. When subtext is done right, it's invisible to those who don't see it, and those people don't miss it, either. It's one of the things that enhances the experience for the hardcore fan base, but which is subtle enough to keep casual viewers interested without being lost.

Do you think academics and others who bring scholarship, intellectual rigor, and critical thinking to pop culture are looking for a place in fandom, which books like this one help provide?

Leah: I think academics already have a place in fandom—which is to say I think the two are way less mutually exclusive than we usually treat them. And the credit for this probably goes to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first fandom I can think of, at least, that really wholeheartedly embraced academic analysis . . . and one of the first shows that both inspired passion in its viewers and, importantly, rewarded a deeper analysis.

Part of what I like to imagine Smart Pop as doing is bridging the perceived gap between academia and fandom. That gap has to do, first, with language. Most academic work relies heavily on jargon, which can be a benefit (it acts as a sort of shorthand for writers and readers who have been academically trained, allowing ideas to be communicated more quickly and efficiently) but it can also be a crutch. And it excludes anyone who doesn’t have that academic training, preventing “the rest of us” from being able to benefit from or enjoy the work.The gap also has to do, occasionally, with passion. Not that academics aren’t frequently passionate about their work, but that academia tends to put a premium on “distance.” You could pretty handily describe fandom as putting a premium on the exact opposite. I think you can love something and still treat it with intellectual rigor; the idea that to analyze something is to destroy what is enjoyable about it isn’t one I buy, and it’s clearly not one modern-day fandom buys either.

I was delighted to see one of the philosophical issues I have with the series addressed in Randall M. Jensen’s essay, “What’s Supernatural About Supernatural?” Namely, that when you approach the supernatural with the detailed sense of taxonomy and empiricism that the hunters do, it actually becomes natural, like a branch of cryptozoology. Jensen didn’t have a problem with this, but I see it as robbing some of the mystery and aura from the subject matter, even as the series does a good job of sustaining mystery in terms of the broader story arcs. Any thoughts?

Keith: I don't think it's a problem at all. Part of the show's appeal is that the boys are constantly learning new things, and putting their knowledge to good use—like the Devil's Trap at the end of the first season. And they keep notes (and use their father's notes) and update their own knowledge base. To do otherwise would make them out to be stupid and/or incompetent, and that would reduce the show's appeal tremendously. As Jensen said, the real horror is in the loss of family and the ones you love being destroyed, not in the supernatural elements.

In closing, do you care to name your favorite episode or moment, and why? Or maybe tell us if your appraisal of certain episodes changed as a result of reading the essays in In the Hunt?

Leah: I think my favorite as of recently has to be “In the Beginning” from earlier this season. Not only was it a great mix of funny and heart-wrenching, it managed to make perfect sense with everything that came before it while totally transforming everything we thought we knew. I loved how long Kripke et al had clearly been keeping all of it secret from us. I loved how the episode managed to be all about Sam, even though we spent the entire 40 minutes with Dean—which of course left me thinking about Dodger Winslow’s essay again. And viewing the episode in light of Jacob Clifton’s essay, I loved thinking about what it might mean for the show’s treatment of both women and “the feminine” that the boys were finally being let in on their mother’s secrets. Um, and I’ve always really liked “Hollywood Babylon,” ‘cause of how it’s funny.

Keith: My favorite will probably always be "Jus in Bello." Part of it is my deep man-love for the character of Agent Victor Henriksen. When we first met Victor in "Nightshifter" (another of my favorites), my first thought was, "This guy is what Dean would've been like if he'd grown up normal and gone into law-enforcement." Sure enough, once Victor is "converted," he and Dean work perfectly together, like a well-oiled machine. One of the things I liked about that character was that he was a competent antagonist. He learned from his mistakes. "Jus in Bello" showed that in spades, as Victor well and truly had the Winchesters.

On top of all that, the episode was just a masterpiece of action and horror and suspense, with the heroes being forced to make an impossible moral choice. In the end, the boys were right, but so was Ruby.

While none of the essays changed my appraisal of episodes, several fourth-season episodes made me wish the authors had had a chance to revise their essays. In particular, both Jensen's and Avril Hannah-Jones's essays would be far more interesting with the revelation that there are angels, and I would love for Carol Poole to reexamine her "Who Threw Momma on the Ceiling?" in light of what we learned about Mary Campbell Winchester in "In the Beginning."