CATCHING UP WITH JASON HENDERSON & SWORD OF DRACULA

[MattBrady]

by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

The Sword was first drawn in 2003.

It gets drawn again this November when writer Jason Henderson and artist Greg Scott, the creators of the acclaimed Sword of Dracula, reunite with cover artist Tony Harris and return their version of Dracula, re-imagined as “the world’s most dangerous terrorist,” to the world of comic books with Sword of Dracula/Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous from Digital Webbing Press.

Extended and Dangerous is the first new one-shot he’s doing with Greg Scott returning, and expands upon the story that originally appeared in Vampirella Magazine (#8-#9). The original story was a crossover between Sword of Dracula's Ronnie Van Helsing and the Forrest J. Ackerman-created Vampirella.

“In the story, the sarcastic commando leader Ronnie Van Helsing of the Polidorium must bite her lip and team up with the sensuous, dangerous Vampirella to protect an important captive vampire whose testimony will help make a federal case against a major vampire organization,” Henderson explained to Newsarama in an interview from 2004. “The story plays out in a high-speed chase through Manhattan, and of course, is a thrill, since it brings Greg’s Black Hawk Down style back to Sword of Dracula, if only for one story.”

The new and expanded story in November’s Extended and Dangerous features Dracula and his awesome powers, very much a return to the military action of the first season. We staked out and hunted down Jason Henderson to get the writer to shed some light into his decision to bring back “the Osama Bin Laden of vampires."

[Newsarama Note: Save for the first appearance of Dracula from Sword of Dracula (Vol. 1) #1, the preview pages shown below are uncolored pages from Sword of Dracula/Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous. The one-shot will be in full glorious color by Joel Sequin.]

Newsarama: Let’s start from the ground level here – for those who may not have encountered it before, what is Sword of Dracula and what sets it apart?

Jason Henderson: Uber-Dracula versus the world. Our Dracula is defined by his personality and his awesome powers of controlling blood.

To me what I really think sets Sword of Dracula apart is what we started with—a clear, (capital-V) Vision of Dracula as a powerful force in one man, a person who radiates destruction. I feel we catch a glimpse of it in the 60s movies with Christopher Lee, who gives off this animal vibe at the same time that he’s towering and elegant. And since we demand that this Dracula also have full awareness of his history as the historical Dracula, you get someone who if they were alive would make countries wither and fold the moment he strode in. Did you know that the real Dracula spent his formative years in captivity with his brother in the court of Sultan Mehmed of Turkey. His father sent them there as peacekeeping hostages. Years of torture and degradation, and when Dracula returned to his homeland to rule as an adult, he almost immediately declared war on the Turks, moving up and down the Danube setting fire to all the possible landing points. Get this: the captain of the Turks was Dracula’s brother, now grown up and indoctrinated into the enemy. He’s a man who knows how to rule, but cruelly, and how to win, completely, and every good thing is destroyed by him or before him. And, by the way, he’s a manic sexual psychopath with a fixation on impaling things. You take all that and you bring it in, and imagine him, vibrating forth to the 19th century to appear in the novel, and then undulating forth into the 21st century, growing, seething, hating, destroying. Our Dracula is a cruel, dangerous force who can make your blood boil by looking at you.

NRAMA: Just to clarify, Sword of Dracula/Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous is actually an extension of the short story that appeared in two issues of Vampirella Magazine, correct?

JH: Right, hence the name. It’s actually more new than old, though. Greg and I did a short story for Vampirella Magazine where Ronnie teamed up with Vampirella. When Greg expressed that he wanted to come back to Sword of Dracula and do one-shots, we realized we should probably start with Vampi, since there was so much more we could do there. For instance we could make it more about Dracula.

What happens in SOD/Vampi: Extended and Dangerous is that Ronnie raids a train that Dracula is traveling on with his court; her intention is to steal one witness, one vampire who can give her information about a secret new operator in the SOD world. Getting the witness off the train is like Mission: Impossible, fighting with vampires on the top of trains with choppers swooping in. Remember that Drac’s powers as manifested here are that he controls blood, he can sense the slightest cut, and he can throw chains of blood from his own body at you. There are pages of the whole that appeared before, but overall it is a new story. After that, it’s straight on to more Greg & Jason done-in-ones.

NRAMA: Can you briefly tell our readers what's happened previously in the world of SoD? What's the story so far?

JH: Well, we made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but that was just odd. (Really! We got a mention!)

In the time that we’ve seen, Ronnie Van Helsing has become a key operations officer in the North American branch of the Polidorium, a UN-run, US-sponsored agency that uses military tactics to fight vampires and the like. In Season 1 we saw her just starting that role, where she began to turn the agency’s resources directly into hunting for Dracula, who she regards as the most palpable threat coming from the vampire world. She has now captured Dracula at least once and, due to situations beyond her control involving fallen angels and zombies, had to let him go.

We’ve begun to explore back-story. Ronnie has several sisters and we’ve seen them in flashbacks and at least one short story. We saw that Senator Sangster, the sponsor of the Polidorium, was also an agent who hunted Dracula in Vietnam. We’ve seen that the Blue, the powerful treasure hunted for by Dracula in the beginning of Stoker’s novel, was in the hands of the Polidorium since a World War II effort called Project Guns of Frankenstein; we saw the reference but don’t yet know what the heck Project Guns of Frankenstein was.

Ronnie Van Helsing is a character I’m determined to make different—she’s smart, a little troubled, but very strong.

NRAMA: Okay, Season 1 has since been collected by IDW Publishing. But whatever happened to Season 2? Only issue #1 came out, and that was it. You had said that you would be putting a prose version of it up on MySpace but nothing there too. So what is going on?

JH: Thank God you asked this.

One, a huge debacle—when we solicited Season 2, we made a big deal about how we were making it in color, upgrading from the b&w of Season 1. People told us that they thought we were solicited a colorized version of Season 1, not a new story, and that drove down sales. It was a genuine flub.

Season 2’s first two issues were completely drawn by Terry Pallot. The plot involved Dracula taking over an island nation from which he could slowly wheedle his way into the political fabric in the US. Issue #1 came out. Issue #2 was delayed in coloring, and finally so delayed that we killed the season. It was sad, too, because we were getting good reviews when people realized this was new.

These are the challenges of an indie book. You solicit months early, and even if people love your work, if you didn’t get enough orders, a season can be over before it starts.

For those who were interested I started writing the remainder of the season as prose fiction, but then I realized I’d much rather move forward—we’ll finish that arc someday, somehow. It is officially in the SOD world. We won’t re-draw, though, no need. It would only need an issue or two more to be complete, so I’d rather wait until we have the resources to finish it. Greg was not interested in completing an already-started arc; he wanted to come back and do his own done-in-ones, and I completely agree.

NRAMA: Are spin-off projects like W and Guns of Frankenstein still in the works then? What's the latest development news on these?

JH: It’s all about resources. If I had the right crew and the resources to pay them or get them the right deal, we could do it. So out there, yes. In pages of art and scripts, yes, but nothing we can solicit.

NRAMA: Any word on more SOD manga in the vein of SOD: Ronnie? A short story actually appeared in a Christmas issue of Digital Webbing Presents, correct?

JH: We did a Ronnie short story that was not manga; it looked at Ronnie’s relationship with her manipulative older sister Judith.

Since I’ve been writing manga for TokyoPop I’ve been aching to do a manga SOD or as I’ve mentioned before, SOD: Ronnie. Again, same issue, is there a publisher, is there an audience? Carry water, chop wood. Do what you do. Greg and I can make SOD books that kick a**, and what comes next comes next. Man, though, I’d love for that to come next.

NRAMA: What about the SoD movie? It got optioned. The option lapsed and…?

JH: We got optioned. I mean, Greg’s work looks like a movie. Then the movie Van Helsing came out and under-performed, and every. Single. Vampire project. Got put on hold. So it goes. So I have the rights back. We’ll keep making movies on paper. Black Hawk Dracula may happen yet, though-- it's just a concept that everyone gets the moment they see it. It reverberates even when we're between issues; I just did an interview on NPR about Psy-Comm and half the questions were about my "vampires as a metaphor for terrorists" comic.

NRAMA: And the game…

JH: I pulled back the license on the SOD game when Van Helsing made all the movie stuff fold in. I wanted to have it all back so I could turn my attention back to the work. The good part of this is if the right opportunity to build a new game comes along, it can be done.

NRAMA: Okay, back to Sword of Dracula comics. Can you provide a list of all SOD and SOD-related issues/projects that'd come out thus far?

JH: I can list what’s come out:

Sword of Dracula #1-#6 (Image)
Sword of Dracula TPB (collects the Image issues and the prequel "Ice," plus my Dracula essay "What I Forgot about Dracula”)
Sword of Dracula (Volume 2 issue #1) (Digital Webbing)
Digital Webbing Presents #10—prequel story “Ice”
Digital Webbing Presents #21—“Cooler Heads”
Vampirella Magazine (#8-#9[/b]— “Witness”)
Game Developer Conference DVD-sized Ashcan of Sword of Dracula #1, very rare

NRAMA: Will those short stories and what-not be collected into a trade paperback collection in the near future?

JH: I’d like to—but as to Season 2, not until it’s finished right.

NRAMA: Is the first trade still available?

JH: Yes; I can still order it, for instance. Incidentally, I'm curious though if people would be interested in a smaller form factor--manga-sized. I have no data on how that size would be received.

NRAMA: Plans for more SoD? What's coming up next?

JH: The next is a Greg Scott done-in-one under the working title Vienna. I don’t want to give anything away yet.

NRAMA: More Sylvia Faust, Soulcatcher... even Strange Magic?

JH: Sylvia Faust: I doubt it, though I loved it.

Soulcatcher: Yes. New Orleans is a great place to hunt ghosts, and our character Roma, who can steal the abilities of the dead, is the perfect person to meet them. I’m working with Lou Manna now to try to get more Soulcatcher in print.

Strange Magic: Up to Marvel, since she’s Doctor Strange’s daughter and all.

[kidvictory]

Good luck to Jason and Greg. Glad to see some more SOD on the horizon as I was so bummed when Season 2 never finished - especially as it was jumping to color!

This world is simply the coolest twist on the Father of Fangdom in any medium.

As for an SOD game? Man - let's get that Tom Clancy engine for Ronnie and the gang!
I'd buy it!

[jasonhenderson]

I really appreciate the kind words!

It's gonna be fun to bring back SOD-- we'll have full-color previews very soon.

You know what would be cool as far as games go, speaking purely as a geek? I really would like to see a Counter-strike mod of Polidorium Agents versus Vampires. But yeah, a big multiplayer shooter would be where it's at.

Thanks very much!

[kidvictory]

Don't worry, I'll probably outgeek you . . .

The mod would be cool, except counter strike is a 1st person shooter based on Half-life's engine. When it comes to comic book properties or anything with an iconic character, I think 3rd person is better. We want to SEE Ronnie kick vampire $&*!

I was sort of surprised that The Darkness game was in 1st person, although it was still cool. But having to fight off Vlad's blood weapons? That would be a pretty cool mod!

[Jeremy Williams]

Sword of Dracula was great especially when Henderson and Scott were both on the book. Whatever happened to these guys. Shouldn't they both be working at Marvel or DC right now?

[jasonhenderson]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Williams

Sword of Dracula was great especially when Henderson and Scott were both on the book. Whatever happened to these guys. Shouldn't they both be working at Marvel or DC right now?

Thanks! Now, Greg has done a lot of work for Marvel and DC.He did a long stint on Gotham Central, and we worked together on STRANGE MAGIC, which was Doctor Strange's Daughter in New Orleans. But that was my only Marvel book, unless you count the novels I did for Marvel.

SOD is our indy love.