Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dynamite, entertainment, gail simone, Nancy Collins, vampirella

Taking Care Of Business – Gail Simone Talks With Nancy A. Collins About Vampirella

Published Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:00:14 -0500

There is something special about peer-to-peer interviews, especially when one of the creators is a true fan of the others. Here we get Batgirl, Birds Of Prey, Red Sonja writer Gail Simone talking with Sonja Blue creator Nancy A. Collins.

Every writer I know has a list of heroes, a scroll of the people who inspired them to try a career with an often uncertain career path and little in the way of security.

Sometimes, if you are really fortunate, you get to meet one of the people on that list. And if you are REALLY fortunate, they turn out to be exactly the people you need them to be.

For me, that's Nancy A. Collins.

When I was deep into comics, reading them for the first time as a semi-adult thinking person, even some of the most celebrated comics of the Vertigo and independent ranges still felt not particularly welcoming to me, as a female reader. There was a lot of sexual violence, and a lot of violent sexuality, that felt extremely hollow and unwelcoming, for one thing, and many of the female characters seemed considerably less real and robust than their male counterparts. They could be in the stories, but they were rarely the HEROES. They were rarely the focus.

I had been reading Swamp Thing in back issues (which were a thing where you read older comics issues that you found in shops in Ye Olde Timey days), and when I got to Nancy's run, I was smacked immediately in the brain. I thought they were brilliant. I'd never read anything like them (I still think it is THE most underrated Swampy run). I immediately became a fan and bought all her books.

Turns out, she was an Bram Stoker award-winning author. Her central character, Sonja Blue, was WAY ahead of the sexy vampire curve, but with an intelligence and raw quality that has yet to be equaled.

I took a chance and wrote her at random, I had few aspirations as a writer, at the time, and many of my female writer heroes had been very discouraging about my attempting to enter the field.

Not Nancy. She was endlessly helpful and generous, in a realistic and no-nonsense way that I still try to pass on when people ask me for advice, over a decade later. I wouldn't be a writer if not for her, and I am still a huge fan.

Cue last year…I had an idea for a Red Sonja anthology, and I wanted all the writers to be people whose work I loved, with Nancy's name right at the top of the list. She generously said yes, to her first comic book work in fifteen years, and did a story that perfectly evoked the black and white comics magazines she adored as a kid.

And now she is revamping (sorry) one of the OTHER great pin-up/asskicker queens of comics, VAMPIRELLA, with a new number one and a new mission. I read the first issue and I loved it and asked if I could talk to her about it, a little. This combination of Nancy and Vampi is so perfect, I can't believe it's never happened before. Get this book, you're in for a treat!

GAIL: Nancy, I enjoyed the first issue a lot, and I'm curious about how this all went down. You know I'm a big fan of your work, and you clearly have the background in horror, so I get why Dynamite would contact you, but had you read Vampirella before, either in her recent series, or in the black and white magazines?

NANCY: Yes, I used to read Vampirella when I was a teenager, back when Archie Goodwin was writing the character for Warren. I used to follow all the Warren titles back then, as well as Skywald and Marvel's line of black & white magazines. I stopped reading them when I went off to college. I never read the Harris run, although I was aware of it at the time.

GAIL: So, what is it about her that appealed/appeals to you? How does she speak to you?

NANCY: What initially appealed to me about Vampirella, way back when, was that she was a woman capable of taking care of whatever business she might find herself in. That was pretty rare back then, in comics or elsewhere in pop culture. You basically had Vampirella, Red Sonja, Black Widow, Mrs. Peel and Modesty Blaise. That was it. I also was intrigued by the fact she was somewhat amoral, by traditional human standards, yet still depicted as a heroine. I mean, Vampirella routinely, and rather cavalierly, killed otherwise innocent humans in her earliest adventures. She was a vampire–one that still fed on human beings–yet she was also the hero of the story. Talk about moral ambiguity.

GAIL: It's interesting that Hollywood seems to have caught up with Vampirella as an adventure/action star with horrific/vampiric overtones. What is it you hope to bring that's a new and fresh take on the character? And also, thank you for putting the stake in the Twilight thing…

NANCY: I want to recapture some of that early Warren zeitgeist and take the character back to her horror roots. Because of her "powers" and her costume, it is easy to forget she's not a superheroine. I plan of playing up her occult investigator/monster hunter background, while introducing her to some singularly bizarre creatures from urban legend and folklore from around the world.

GAIL: I have to ask you a variation of the question I have been asked a hundred times recently… as the writer of Red Sonja and her metal bikini, I feel some kinship to you, dealing with Vampi's outfit. We both are writing great characters who would also work on the side of a van driven by stoned metalheads. Many people don't know that it was designed by the legendary Trina Robbins. Do you have any feelings about her classic outfit?

NANCY: My biggest problems with Vampirella's costume are 1 ) It makes it difficult for the character to be taken seriously, even amongst comic book fans, and 2) I have to figure out how to cover up and/or explain her costume when she's not battling demons, cultists and other vampires. But Vampirella's costume is an integral part of the character–hell, it's part of her trademark. Dynamite tried to dress her "normally", and the fans did not embrace the change at all. As far as I'm concerned, you've got to play the hand you're dealt. And in the case of Vampirella and her costume–you gotta Own It, girl.

GAIL: HA! I feel the same way about Sonja, that if she's wearing that, she's going to wear the HELL out of it. A lot depends on how they are drawn, so can you talk a little bit about the art and covers?

NANCY: I've been very impressed by the work Patrick Berkenkotter has done on the series so far. His Vampi is both beautiful and deadly. And I was thrilled when Nick Barucci at Dynamic Forces told me that Terry Dodson was going to be doing the covers. The man knows how to draw strong, sexy ladies, that's for certain! I've also been very pleased by the range of artists tapped for the alternative covers–Jenny Frison, Art Adams,Jay Anacleto, Stephanie Buscema and Joe Jusko are all amazing talents.

GAIL: I have to give huge props to Dynamite…they are really doing some of the most gallery-worthy covers anywhere, and I love that they are asking female writers to freshen up some of their female icons for this century. Okay, showtime. Please give us the movie pitch for your first big arc…I found the first issue wonderfully creepy!

NANCY: "Creepy". Heh-heh.

In OUR LADY OF SHADOWS Vampirella investigates a kidnapping perpetrated by a man calling himself Ethan Shroud–her oldest arch-enemy and leader of the Cult of Chaos–only to end up the centerpiece of a ritual dedicated to Lady Umbra, the Queen of Shadows and sister-bride of the Mad God Chaos, Vampirella's *second* oldest arch-enemy. Now irreversibly "tainted" by the ritual, she is not only abandoned by her former comrades–the secret Vatican organization known as Cestus Dei–but marked for death as well. In order to save the world, as well as herself, she finds herself teamed up with the strangest ally imaginable as she travels the world in search of the different rare species of vampire in hopes of reversing the curse placed upon her.

GAIL: Any plans you can hint at?

NANCY: Well, 2014 is Vampirella's 45th Anniversary, and there are plans to commemorate the occasion. I can't go into a lot of detail, but I hope to be reintroducing some characters from the original Warren run, albeit somewhat retooled. I'm having a great deal of fun writing the character and look forward to throwing Vampirella one hell of a birthday bash!

This is me again, Gail, and I just want to add this note again…Nancy Collins is going to rock Vampirella hard, I'm telling you. Be sure to pick this book up, and see how nasty good comics can be!