GAIL SIMONE talks RED SONJA/TARZAN #1, on sale in MAY from Dynamite!
BYRON BREWER: Welcome home, Gail! What brings you back to Dynamite and Red Sonja, a character with which you are very much associated?
GAIL SIMONE: I missed her, that’s the truth of that part. Amy Chu has absolutely been killing it on the main Sonja title, so she’s in the best possible hands. But I miss writing her, and it’s lovely to see the response those stories I did with her are getting even in other media. So she’s always in the back of my mind.
When Nick [Barrucci] asked me what I’d like to do next at Dynamite, I picked a choice that I was pretty sure was impossible: teaming Sonja with the greatest pulp adventure hero of all time, Tarzan.
BB: How does it feel to be reuniting with your fellow RS alumnus, artist Walter Geovani, for this epic meeting of the She-Devil with a Sword and the Lord of the Jungle?
GS: It’s joyful. I am fortunate in that, for whatever reason, I get to pick and choose which kinds of books to do, and lately in particular, I feel more invested in doing ONE great story with my favorite characters than an extended run. So I am picking assignments based on what will bring the most joy.
And Walter is just one of the handful of artists that seems to get me, to always make my scripts come to life and look better than I could have hoped for. Honestly, I hope to work with Walter for years and years to come.
BB: For clarity’s sake, has Sonja met Tarzan before … either in the Swords of Sorrows event or the mammoth Pathfinder Worldscape? If so, will you follow that continuity?
GS: Definitely not in Swords of Sorrow. We skirted it a LITTLE bit, in having Sonja fight Dejah Thoris, and having her meet Jane Porter. But I didn’t want to shoe-horn this momentous meeting in three panels in a huge crossover book. This needs room. It goes from Hyrkania to WWI London to the jungles of Cameroon and that’s just the START. Can’t compress this stuff!
BB: What can you tell us about this iconic team-up of two literary legends, the main storyline?
GS: I’ve talked about this before, but the Tarzan novels were the first pulp adventure novels I’d ever followed, when I was just a little girl living on a remote farm. Those led to more Edgar Rice Burroughs books, and that led to the Avenger and Doc Savage and the Shadow. So it’s always, always been a dream to write Tarzan, but I wanted it to be special, I wanted it to really be part of the great Tarzan comics tradition. I don’t know if I would be writing adventure stories without having read his tales.
At the same time, Red Sonja I love for her irreverence, and her fire. I think she’s just funny and sassy and lethal in a way that is quite compellingly the opposite of Lord Greystoke.
And again, it’s the first approved tale spotlighting the crossover of the two greatest pulp writers of all time: Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Tarzan in the Hyborian Age? How could anyone not want to read that?
BB: We all know (and if not, WHY not?) your take on Red Sonja. Give us your take on Tarzan.
GS: It’s the coin flip that I love. Tarzan being a guy in the jungle is interesting, but when you add that layer, that he is also an erudite member of the British nobility, I think those two sides are amazingly potent. You cross him at your peril.
There have been some decent Tarzan films, but few capture that element…that there’s a great ape inside the gentleman.
BB: Who is Eson Duul? Can you give us any description of the character?
GS: ERB and REH were both tremendously good at creating villains. You really hated the bad guys in their stories. My feeling was always that ERB’s tended to have a literary feel, while REH seemed to draw more directly from history. So I wanted a villain that took equally from both approaches, and we have Eson Duul, quite simply one of the darkest-hearted bastards I’ve ever created.
He’s everything bad about greed and power. There’s not a redeeming bone in him, and that’s quite different from the characters I usually create. Aside from that, he’s a physical specimen that is more than a match for Sonja AND Tarzan.
BB: Just Curious Dept.: Gail, tell us what else you may be working on.
GS: I am currently working on Season Two of Crosswind for Image Comics, Plastic Man for DC, and Domino for Marvel. I am having a blast just writing stories of my favorite fatal weirdos!
BYRON BREWER: Welcome home, Gail! What brings you back to Dynamite and Red Sonja, a character with which you are very much associated?
GAIL SIMONE: I missed her, that’s the truth of that part. Amy Chu has absolutely been killing it on the main Sonja title, so she’s in the best possible hands. But I miss writing her, and it’s lovely to see the response those stories I did with her are getting even in other media. So she’s always in the back of my mind.
When Nick [Barrucci] asked me what I’d like to do next at Dynamite, I picked a choice that I was pretty sure was impossible: teaming Sonja with the greatest pulp adventure hero of all time, Tarzan.
BB: How does it feel to be reuniting with your fellow RS alumnus, artist Walter Geovani, for this epic meeting of the She-Devil with a Sword and the Lord of the Jungle?
GS: It’s joyful. I am fortunate in that, for whatever reason, I get to pick and choose which kinds of books to do, and lately in particular, I feel more invested in doing ONE great story with my favorite characters than an extended run. So I am picking assignments based on what will bring the most joy.
And Walter is just one of the handful of artists that seems to get me, to always make my scripts come to life and look better than I could have hoped for. Honestly, I hope to work with Walter for years and years to come.
BB: For clarity’s sake, has Sonja met Tarzan before … either in the Swords of Sorrows event or the mammoth Pathfinder Worldscape? If so, will you follow that continuity?
GS: Definitely not in Swords of Sorrow. We skirted it a LITTLE bit, in having Sonja fight Dejah Thoris, and having her meet Jane Porter. But I didn’t want to shoe-horn this momentous meeting in three panels in a huge crossover book. This needs room. It goes from Hyrkania to WWI London to the jungles of Cameroon and that’s just the START. Can’t compress this stuff!
BB: What can you tell us about this iconic team-up of two literary legends, the main storyline?
GS: I’ve talked about this before, but the Tarzan novels were the first pulp adventure novels I’d ever followed, when I was just a little girl living on a remote farm. Those led to more Edgar Rice Burroughs books, and that led to the Avenger and Doc Savage and the Shadow. So it’s always, always been a dream to write Tarzan, but I wanted it to be special, I wanted it to really be part of the great Tarzan comics tradition. I don’t know if I would be writing adventure stories without having read his tales.
At the same time, Red Sonja I love for her irreverence, and her fire. I think she’s just funny and sassy and lethal in a way that is quite compellingly the opposite of Lord Greystoke.
And again, it’s the first approved tale spotlighting the crossover of the two greatest pulp writers of all time: Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Tarzan in the Hyborian Age? How could anyone not want to read that?
BB: We all know (and if not, WHY not?) your take on Red Sonja. Give us your take on Tarzan.
GS: It’s the coin flip that I love. Tarzan being a guy in the jungle is interesting, but when you add that layer, that he is also an erudite member of the British nobility, I think those two sides are amazingly potent. You cross him at your peril.
There have been some decent Tarzan films, but few capture that element…that there’s a great ape inside the gentleman.
BB: Who is Eson Duul? Can you give us any description of the character?
GS: ERB and REH were both tremendously good at creating villains. You really hated the bad guys in their stories. My feeling was always that ERB’s tended to have a literary feel, while REH seemed to draw more directly from history. So I wanted a villain that took equally from both approaches, and we have Eson Duul, quite simply one of the darkest-hearted bastards I’ve ever created.
He’s everything bad about greed and power. There’s not a redeeming bone in him, and that’s quite different from the characters I usually create. Aside from that, he’s a physical specimen that is more than a match for Sonja AND Tarzan.
BB: Just Curious Dept.: Gail, tell us what else you may be working on.
GS: I am currently working on Season Two of Crosswind for Image Comics, Plastic Man for DC, and Domino for Marvel. I am having a blast just writing stories of my favorite fatal weirdos!
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