Dynamite recently announced that Frank Cho’s Jungle Girl was coming back for a third season. Working with Cho on the series will be writer Doug Murray. Byron Brewer caught up with Murray to talk about the new project and what it’s like to work with Cho.
BYRON BREWER: First, Doug, how does it feel to work with Frank Cho on this continuing saga?
DOUG MURRAY: Frank Cho and I have been friends for many years and put Jungle Girl together as a team back in the day. Frank is a fantastic artist and a very gifted writer; it’s always fun to work with him on any project.
BB: Can you explain the process a bit into how you and Frank work as writers on the new miniseries.
DM: We talk things over (usually on the phone) to get a feel for what we want to do. I do an outline from that and pass it to Frank, then he suggests changes which I respond to and so on until we’re both happy with the result.
BB: Give us your own perceptions of Jana the Jungle Girl as a character.
DM: Jana is, in many ways, a modern-day analogue of Tarzan, the most famous of all jungle characters. She’s been raised in an environment that lacks what we think of as basic comforts, thus she has no concept of “cell phone” or “Twitter” or any of the other things “civilized” people are obsessed with. She lives life day to day, hunting the creatures that inhabit her world so she can eat, not for any notion of pleasure. She’s a simple person in some ways, but very complex in others.
BB: Last we saw Jana, she certainly had her hands full. The displaced natives intent on claming a new homeland ALMOST rings true from current headlines. How will these characters figure into Jana’s life, if at all?
DM: War will come—but not for the reasons we set up in Season Two—something much bigger and more all-encompassing happens, forcing Jana and her friends into direct conflict with the Dirt People. In a way, it’s a sad thing because they all have a great deal in common—but war it will be, albeit a far shorter one than the leaders of the Dirt People expect.
BB: Aside from all she faced “last time,” can you clue us into any big-bad coming this “season”?
DM: We’re going to have the biggest big-bad possible. The creature that is trapped inside the God-Mountain has called to his people and they have come to get him out. Something that will, if it comes to pass, destroy both Jana’s world and our own.
BB: Ouch! That IS big! Onward: Doug, why is artist Jack Jadson right for this book?
DM: Jack Jadson knows how to draw the human form—something he’s shown us through his work on Vampirella. That skill, coupled with the ability to tell a story visually, makes him a fine choice for Jungle Girl.
For more on Jungle Girl Season 3, click here.
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