ZOMBIE MAYHEM MASTERMIND FRED VAN LENTE DETAILS DIE!NAMITE: BLOOD RED!

Fred, this is the fourth major chapter of the DIE!NAMITE saga and you’ve been steering the ship from square one. At this point do you feel you have a great grasp on this mythos you’ve built up of a zombie apocalypse across the stars? And what’s it like to dip back into this pool (of blood) once more?

I do, and what’s fun is this is a brand-new world to play in; we decided that with the amount of time that’s happened since the last series, better to give readers both new and old a fresh jumping-in spot. I’m happy to say I’m having as much fun doing this series as any of the previous ones.

As mentioned, Blood Red follows from the original DIE!NAMITE and its sequels DIE!NAMITE Lives and DIE!NAMITE Never Dies (plus a fun Our Bloody Valentine special along the way). For fans jumping into this new series cold — which they can totally do! — what are some of the basics they should know?

This is more of a noir-flavored take on a zombie apocalypse, hewing closely to the pulp roots of a lot of Dynamite’s best characters. We’re focusing on a single location, the mysterious Sunset City, which is the remnants of Los Angeles after most of the continent has been overrun by the living dead — the Deadmen.

One fun angle for the DIE!NAMITE tales to date has been the cast of characters involved. Obviously we can’t include every single character and franchise we’ve ever published due to contractual reasons, but the worlds we’re able to pull from have been expansive. Who has been teed up for the ensemble in Blood Red, and are there any big surprises you want to reveal or even tease at this juncture?

I’ll talk about the first issue. The star here is Vampirella, who has become a kind of private investigator running down missing persons in the shadowed streets of Sunset City after being stranded here from her home planet of Drakulon. The city is run by a sinister cartel headed by Purgatori, and her enforcers Hel and Chastity. She cedes manning the wall to her fighting force, the Furies, led by Ms. Fury herself.

All is upended, however, when a spaceship crashes bearing the mysterious alien princess Dejah Thoris. She says the Deadmen plague is Martian in nature, and she knows where they can find a cure — which requires an expedition through the wasteland to a long-lost town called Las Vegas, where there are whispers of a She-Devil with a Sword making the streets run with blood…

One fun twist for Blood Red is the detail that the zombie virus is affecting men and women differently (though this doesn’t make anyone immune to the overall vicious threat). What inspired this choice?

It’s just different. I’ve done a lot — a lot, a lot — of zombie comics, and I am always surprised at how it’s such a ductile genre that you can apply to almost every situation. This seems natural, as a way to focus on all of Dynamite’s many awesome female heroes. And women may not be able to become zombies, but they can become lunch, so they’ve walled in Sunset City both to protect themselves and keep alive those male loved ones they have left.

You’ve worked with a number of electrifying artists, on the DIE!NAMITE titles as well as on some of the other hits you’ve worked on with us, like the recent Jennifer Blood stories. Marco Finnegan is here as your copilot, following his work on James Bond. How excited are you to see his depictions of the blood and guts at play?

Marco is a perfect fit for the more pulp-flavored elements of the series. When I proposed this aspect of the series, redoubtable editor Nate Cosby thought of him because of his great series Calavera, for Oni. He’s a great choice, and he’s just crushing the art here. Noir and zombie fans will be equally satisfied.

Zombnoir! See, we made a new genre!

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