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David Avallone's Writer's Commentary on Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark #6

Published Sat, 22 Jun 2019 13:00:16 -0500

David Avallone delivers his Writer's Commentary on Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark #6, on sale now from Dynamite. He writes; The usual warning: SO MANY SPOILERS. This issue is chock full of crazy. You'll love it. Then come back and read this…

Covers: Linsner goes for something a little spookier than usual. I think I remember suggesting "Elvira playing chess with Death" to Craig Cermack, but I might be remembering it wrong. It's a beautiful cover, either way. John Royle, who does such amazing covers for my Bettie Page series, captures Elvira every bit as well as he does Bettie. Roberto Castro did a fun "Loch Ness" themed cover.

Page 1:

We pick up right where we left off, and Minos does not like Elvira's attitude. Even with her immortal soul at stake, Elvira isn't about to change.

Pages 2 & 3:

As I said last time… every issue in the Inferno arc will open with a two-page spread. And just like last time, Dave Acosta is up to the challenge. We talked about the idea that Hell is an impact crater, formed by the fall of Lucifer and the lesser angels. It's where they crashed, and the tapering cone forming the "Circles" of Hell is a record of that primordial crash. These four issues are, for very obvious reasons, hugely influenced by Dante Alighieri's epic poem THE DIVINE COMEDY, which is broken into three sections (of which INFERNO is the first) and 100 sub-sections. These sections are called "Cantos." Remember the title "Divine Comedy," because it's connected to an inside joke in Cantos 2, 3 and 4. You'll figure it out in Canto 4.

Pages 4, 5 & 6: Elvira meets a Demon. I think he looks a little bit like Dabney Coleman. He's a middle management Demon. The "going down" joke is one of those "Is this too far?" gags that I wonder if I should include, and invariably decide to go for it. Cassandra has never rejected a joke for being too filthy. I imagine this surprises no one. Dabney Coleman Demon knows The Boss is too pure for the Inferno, aside from being not dead. A note here about Ellie Wright's color work on this very challenging book: it was her idea that the demons are a variety of shades, and I think it works and creates a more interesting "Hell."

Page 7: I told Dave it would be nice to see some M. C. Escher-looking backgrounds and once again he came through. I wanted to drive home that we're not merely underground on Earth. Hell is its own dimension with its own rules, and we don't know what they are. Yet.

Page 8 & 9: I have been fortunate to have Elayne Boosler for a friend. Aside from being a legendary and ground-breaking (and hilarious) stand-up comic, she also runs an animal rescue organization called Tails of Joy (TailsOfJoy.net.) So she knows dogs. Even Hell Hounds. And the advice Elvira quotes here is advice Elayne gave me once that I've never forgotten, so I thought it was worth adding to the comic, and kind of a funny way to deal with a completely insane situation. Taylor Esposito does his usual awesome job on this issue, and take notice of the WOOFS here.

Pages 10 & 11: Meet Glenn! In Dante's INFERNO (part one of THE DIVINE COMEDY), Dante is guided through Hell by the Roman poet Virgil. I wanted Elvira to have a guide suitable to her, and who she is and how she lives her life. Glenn is based on a real person, but I won't tell you who just yet. Dave has captured the look (or one of his looks, I should say) perfectly.

Page 12: From Greek mythology, we have the myth of Sisyphus. You've heard it, right? He's sentenced to roll a rock up a mountain every day for all eternity, and then at the end of each day it rolls back over him and he has to do it again. The French writer Albert Camus wrote a famous essay by the same name, and I totally accept Elvira's judgment that bringing up famous French existentialists in an Elvira comic book is pretentious as, well, Hell. When Dave Acosta got this script he said to me, "Are you going to post the syllabus online so the readers can do their homework?" Funny, and true. If I hadn't gone into show business I wanted to be a college professor, and I guess it shows. I like to think the comics are still entertaining if you don't get every reference… but I write these commentaries mostly so I can talk about the references…

Page 13: More M. C. Escher, and Glenn namechecks Elton John. "Coraggio!" is Italian for "courage."

Page 14: Elvira, encountering a door floating in space, quotes one of Rod Serling's opening narrations from THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Glenn doesn't recognize it. Everyone recognizes the worst song in the world, though. Sorry, Starship fans. Some of the store names were scripted by me, Dave Acosta came up with a lot of them himself. I think "Dead, Death and Beyond" and "Beast Buy" were mine, "Head Piercing" and "Foot Lickers" are his.

Pages 15: More philosophy, and Elvira quotes Charles Dickens. I'm proud of "Quetzel's Pretzels." I didn't want all the iconography in Hell to be Western/Christian… so the Aztec Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl gets a shout-out. Also, I love Wetzels pretzels. "Just Salt", "Gas Station Pizza" and "Midnight Express" are all Dave Acosta's, and made me laugh out loud when I saw the panel. Love the Mall Security Demon characters.

Pages 16, 17 & 18: Glenn explains why Demons aren't very bright, while two particularly dim security guards play with fire. I wanted a Mad Magazine kind of vibe. The great artist Mort Drucker would often slip hilarious background gags into his movie parodies, and I wanted to do that kind of thing here with the Demons. Dave Acosta delivered, as he always does. The store names here are also Dave's work. Glenn uses Pazuzu (from THE EXORCIST) as his example of "smart, dangerous demons," and Beetlejuice as his example of… the other kind.

Pages 19: Hell is a broken escalator. You know what I'm talking about.

Page 20: The Minotaur! He shows up in Dante's INFERNO, which is one long Ray Harryhausen movie when it comes to mythical creatures. Come back next month to find out how he gets fed. As always, thanks to Kevin Ketner, my editor at Dynamite, for all his hard work getting the book to press, and to the public.

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