Available: 2006-07-26
Publisher: Viper Comics
Price: $2.95
Writer: Jason Burns
Artist: Ron Chan

Viper Comics will be debuting their latest title, A Dummy’s Guide to Danger, next week at San Diego Comic-Con, and PopCultureShock checked in with its creator/writer, Jason Burns (who is also Viper’s Assistant Publisher) to get the scoop.

PopCultureShock: “A Dummy’s Guide to Danger”? Give us the 30-second pitch.

Jason Burns: A Dummy’s Guide To Danger is a four-issue mini series about a private investigator and his partner, a paraplegic ventriloquist dummy, who get roped into a case involving a serial killer known as The Flesh Collector, who like his name states, enjoys collecting pieces of his victims. It’s a dark noir story, but there are plenty of laughs in there as well.

PCS: Are you a fan of “The Dummy” episode from the Twilight Zone? That’s one of my all-time favorites.

Burns: It’s funny, everyone keeps asking me about that, but yeah, I did enjoy that episode… but I have to admit, ventriloquist dummies scared the hell out of me growing up, so that may be the reason why I made mine a good guy. Therapy perhaps?

PCS: Is Mr. Bloomberg real, or is Alan Sirois just really crazy?

Burns: Mr. Bloomberg is real in that he is a puppet, but he is not alive except in Alan’s head. Let’s just say that Alan has issues for lack of a better term, but at the end of the day he is one hell of a private investigator first and a whacko who talks to a ventriloquist dummy second. That’s how he gets by in life.

PCS: How did they become partners, and how did people come to accept them as legitimate investigators?

Burns: Alan and Mr. Bloomberg have been best friends since they were kids, but we don’t really go into the past at all in this first series except for a single flashback that exists only in Alan’s mind. How things came to be with Alan and Mr. Bloomberg is a topic I hope to unravel in future installments of the series if it does well enough to call for more.

Oh… and not everyone thinks of Alan as a legitimate investigator. To a lot of people, he is just a laughing stock… a novelty.

PCS: Who’s Red (Teri)?

Burns: She is the love interest… a friend of Alan’s who is always in his corner and who hopes to make it more, but the relationship between he and his best friend/partner (Mr. Bloomberg) always seems to get in the way. Again, Alan is a great guy if you can look past that whole slightly nutty thing and Teri sees that… now she just needs to find a way to make it all work.

PCS: The first issue features some pretty graphic violence, with two female characters meeting rather grisly ends at the hands of an apparent serial killer. Are you expecting/prepared for being spotlighted on When Fangirls Attack as the latest contributor to the Women in Refrigerators list?

Burns: I don’t discriminate… there will be more victims of The Flesh Collector in this series and I promise the guys get it just as bad. Besides… after writing the graphic novel The Expendable One… which is about as graphically violent as you can get… I’m not worried about this series. Compared to The Expendable One, A Dummy’s Guide To Danger is “7th Heaven”.

PCS: Both stories deal with serial killers and feature some pretty gory deaths. Are you a big fan of splatter films, or just working out some unresolved issues? This is one of those rare times when the “What inspires you?” question seems appropriate.

Burns: I’ve always been a fan of darker stories… and slasher flicks are always good popcorn fare. But honestly, I watch and read so much in terms of different genres that I think a little bit of everything inspires me in some way or another. I’m also a big believer in writing to your audience and all of my comic reading friends are drawn to that same kind of dark fare, so why not give people what they want to read. And besides… writing with blood and gore is damn fun!

Oh… and I have unresolved issues… the problem is, I just haven’t figured out how to work through them yet. Hopefully by the sequel I’ll have made some ground on that.

PCS: How did you hook up with Viper Comics, both as a creator and as Assistant Publisher? Which came first?

Burns: I spent the majority of my professional career as an entertainment journalist and I had interviewed Viper Comics president/publisher Jessie Garza for a story. We stayed in touch, and he learned that I wrote screenplays and offered me a chance to write a short story in a Dead@17: Rough Cut book. I did that, pitched them on a couple of story ideas (”A Dummy’s Guide To Danger” being one of them) and the rest is history. While I always collected comics, I never really thought about writing them… I was always concentrated on Hollywood. Now I absolutely love it and can’t get enough.

In terms of the assistant publisher gig… that came about recently… just a few months ago. They offered me the position and I jumped at it. Viper is on the rise, and I think you’re really going to see them blow up in the next year or two. It’s always good to get involved with a company on the way up and I’m psyched to be a part of it.

PCS: Viper has a solid track record for publishing off-beat but distinctive projects, including Josh Howard’s Dead@17 series and Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s Middleman, and a reputation for doing so at a slow-but-steady pace. How would you define the Viper “brand”?

Burns: We look for unique projects with an emphasis on quality… from the writing to the art to the design. I think our “brand” kind of speaks for itself. People recognize that a comic or graphic novel is a Viper book just by glancing at the packaging and cover design. That’s a great compliment to what we’re doing and it’s validation that we’re doing something right in building the company’s brand. And in terms of the storytelling… I think you nailed it by describing them as “off-beat.” Our projects are over the top, but they’re not off the ledge… there is still a human element to everything we release, and I think that’s what helps us to stand out.

PCS: What is Viper’s philosophy when it comes to selecting potential projects for publication? What do you look for, and how do you ultimately define “success” (sales of floppies, TPBs, licensing deals, etc.)?

Burns: We’re all about the quality, but it’s got to be found everywhere in the project. If we find a great story, but the art attached is not up to par, we regret having to turn it down, but we will. We need to be able to hold a pitch up against what we’ve already published and know that it can stand alongside of those previous titles. If it can do that in the storytelling, dialogue, pacing and art… we’ll have a hard time turning it down.

PCS: What’s coming up next from Jason Burns?

Burns: I have a number of projects on the horizon, most of which I can’t go into unfortunately, but I can mention a horror series that we anticipate having released by the end of the year. It’s called Dreadful Things Dwell Here and the original idea came from Viper’s Jessie Garza. Once we started working together, he brought the concept to me and we ran with it. I really think people will have fun with the series and the art by Martin Abel is absolutely incredible. We don’t have a definite release date set for that, but look for something by the end of 2006.

In the meantime, anyone interested can contact me through www.myspace.com/jasonmburnswww.myspace.com/jasonmburns. I love hearing from people… whether you like or hate what I’m doing. Bring it all on.

A Dummy’s Guide to Danger — written by Jason Burns, art by Ron Chan – is scheduled to arrive in stores on Wednesday, July 26th. For more information, check it out at ViperComics.com.