O
nce DANGER DOLL SQUAD was announced everyone wanted to know more. Then finally the solicitations come out and I still don’t know what the story is about. So I contacted Dan Mendoza, Bryan Seaton and Jason Martin to find out what Danger Doll Squad is all about.
First Comics News: Is this a team book?
Jason Martin: Yes! But first let me take a step back and answer your question about just what we’re doing with Danger Doll Squad, and the now announced issue 0…
As you and our fans know, we now have three monthly series starring different dangerous ladies, all set in the same Danger Zone universe. So naturally, we thought it would be great to tell a story involving all three powerful girls in one book!
Danger Doll Squad issue 0 sets the table for that, the upcoming 3 issue Danger Doll Squad mini-series releasing this October!
1st: What brings them together?
Jason: What brings them together is what we found out in the zero issue, and then is further explored starting the same month in Vampblade. Danger Doll Squad issue 0 touches on it, and then, if you want, you can learn more about that in the pages of Vampblade issues 6-8, which lead right up to Danger Doll Squad issue one… where things ratchet up another level!
Suffice it to say though, that each character have elements or conflicts that, with the characters interacting separately in the past, now come together to force them to all join up to deal with this… threat.
1st: Why do they decide to stay together?
Jason: Without giving too much away, they don’t really have much choice in the matter…
1st: How do the girls get along?
Jason: As anyone who’d followed the books will know, the few times the girls have crossed paths before, it’s always led to some friction… to say the least. Zombie Tramp is a monster, and Vampblade’s all too aware of that, as is Lila (DollFace), who’s sworn to kill witches, and includes Zombie Tramp on that list. So when things start out, they have good cause to want to go at each other, instead of the threat that’s brought them together.
1st: What type of adventures can we expect going forward?
Jason: Similar to the monthly titles, Danger Doll Squad will be packed within your face fun and sexy adventure. A full throttle, dark genre tale that blends horror, sci-fi, and comedy. With plenty of the absurd and what the $#%& moments.
1st: Is this a mini-series or ongoing?
Jason: Danger Doll Squad is a mini-series. With issue 0 available for pre-order now, and out in stores this August, and then issues 1-3 following starting in October.
But hey, who knows? If fans make this a hit. We’d love to tell more stories with our new team of girls!
1st: Will other characters from the Actionverse be showing up from time to time?
Jason: No. This is a crossover of the “Zombie Tramp universe”. So it just deals with characters and element from those books (Zombie Tramp, Vampblade, and DollFace).
1st: How do these stories interact with their individual series?
Jason: The Danger Doll Squad story actually builds on the events in Vampblade issues 6-8, which come out directly after DDS issue 0, and lead up to DDS issue 1. However, the story we’re telling here does fit into the larger stories of each series as well. And just like with Zombie Tramp VS: Vampblade, in time you will see just how and where they do.
A fun bit of continuity for fans of the other series, but Danger Doll Squad stands on its own as a great introduction to the characters and their worlds also.
1st: Switching gears from Danger Doll Squad to Zombie Tramp Origins.
The original series had very limited distribution, how many issues were printed of each?
Jason: The original series was all done by Dan, which he and I printed starting in 2008 as print-on-demand or low run batches, so only a few hundred of each of the 3 original single issues were ever released in that format. Then in 2010 it was released as an original graphic novel with a print run of 2000.
So as you can see, with as popular as the book has gone on to become, and even though Action Lab released the trade paperback collection, the single issues of the first series are much sought after collector’s items. With copies now demanding absurd prices, and many fans who really want those first books, just not able to get them.
1st: You have a trade paperback, why re-release the story in single issues?
Jason: With the fact that fans obviously want these single issues, and then also that when Dan did the first series it was done in a limited color palette. We thought it would be great to re-release the series with updated colors and lettering. Not just offer them in single issues to the direct market (comic shops) for the first time, but to also remaster the series.
1st: The story has been “remastered”, what does the remastering involve?
Jason: When Dan was doing everything on the first two series of the book, he would do the art in black and white, for simplification sake, with just very limited accent colors. And while that made the book unique, and look great, it seemed a shame to never have a fully colored version of that powerful origin story. With Zombie Tramp quickly becoming a modern comics classic, it seemed a shame not to have a definitive edition of her origin.
So now colorist Valentina Pucci, and letterer Justin Birch are taking Dan’s original artwork and re-building that… like a zombie back to life!
1st: Are the replica variant new art or are they Action Lab version with the original art?
Jason: Like we do on the regular books, Origins is also getting 3 new covers for each of the 3 issues (along with a risque treatment of each). So not only is the art remastered, there’s new cover art from a who’s who of Zombie Tramp artists to correspond to each issue (and Janey’s many outfits in that series). Additionally each issue will have the “replica” variant cover, which recreates the original cover art for that issue from the first old school series.
And then for issue one there is also a blank sketch cover variant.
1st: About the Death of Zombie Tramp
I know that you’re not promoting the Death of Zombie Tramp yet, but isn’t Zombie Tramp already dead?
Jason: Hey, that’s top secret!
But yes, as announced at the Diamond Retailer Summit this spring, the Death of Zombie Tramp is coming!
And yes, how does that work when she’s in fact, already dead??
Well, why let the big guys have all the fun of killing off their big characters!!??
I guess you’ll just have to keep following the books to see how that could play out!
1st: When is the Death of Zombie Tramp coming out?
Jason: The Death of Zombie Tramp will be built up to starting with July’s third anniversary issue number 37.
Every year Dan returns to the book and does the complete anniversary issue, and this year that story kicks off the year long event that will lead up to The Death of Zombie Tramp in next July’s four year anniversary issue number 50.
So it’s a 50th anniversary issue that will culminate everything Zombie Tramp has been building to since it started!
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