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INTERVIEW: Jason Burns  First lets talk about your involvement with Severe Magazine, how that started and how it helped you move forward as a writer? Well, prior to joining Severe I had been an entertainment columnist with a newspaper in Massachusetts while also running an online magazine called The Green Room. The people behind Severe knew of my experience in landing interviews and managing a magazine, so they brought me in as Editor in Chief. Unfortunately, the magazine was flawed from a production/management standpoint and I left to concentrate on other things. It was a tough decision because I had put in over a year and a half and had a lot of commitments to people already in place, but it was clearly not working out and it was breaking down internally. I don't regret my time with the magazine, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a disappointment. Was THE EXPENDABLE ONE always planned as a full colour original graphic novel? For a company more used to single issues and a writer still new to the medium, that's quite a leap of faith. Actually, THE EXPENDABLE ONE was originally a mini series, but when I brought it to Viper, they liked the idea of putting it together as a graphic novel. There is a little bit of pressure knowing that it is their first original gn, but the response to the preview pages and overall premise has been overwhelming, so I'm definitely comfortable with the decision to collect it all under one spine. Plus, once it was collected together, Bryan Baugh's art really thrived in that graphic novel format. His work allowed us to put the graphic back in graphic novel, that's for sure!  Not only are they confident enough in you to publish a full colour original graphic novel but they've also brought you on as assistant publisher? The assistant publisher offer came at a time when I was frustrated with the happenings at Severe and it was definitely the deciding factor in me walking away from the magazine. I can't speak to why the Viper crew was confident enough to bring me into the fold, but I have been working with them regularly on various projects for over a year now. They are releasing a handful of my books and we were definitely familiar and comfortable with each other going into things. They're a great publisher releasing great product... I couldn't be happier to be involved with them from a creative standpoint as well as business one. EXPENDABLE ONE is a story of Twigs Dupree, a man who can't die and decides to use that ability to do good. As a result of a serum created by his science/comic geek friend, was there no way to duplicate the serum for others? It actually isn't touched upon in this particular story, but if the book does well and it calls for a sequel, that's essentially what the second series is about. Wow, you totally just got a scoop out of me that I didn't anticipate talking about. Go you! Do you feel some of your own sense of humour shines through in Twigs? Sure. He's a sarcastic bastard and I tend to be drawn to that kind of humour, so I would say that there's a little bit of my funny bone in that guy. What makes Twigs feel the need to be a hero? It seems he does it simply because he's got nothing else to do. That's exactly why he does it. He's bored most of the time and thinks, "I have this ability, so why not?" He's a reluctant hero, but without anything else to do, he sort of just does it because he can. Frankly, he never thought he'd be in it as deep as he gets in THE EXPENDABLE ONE... or at the very least, he never thought it through that far ahead. In his mind it was always just a matter of intervening in small town crime in suburban America, but like how all of us are aware, life doesn't always work out the way you plan it to. Is it a little of the Trickster spirit in him, he puts himself in danger because he gets a kick out of people's reactions to getting his head blown off? Yeah, he definitely gets a kick out of being the walking corpse. He's a jokester by nature anyway, so when you give him a toy like immortality to play with, he can't help but approach it with a bit of schoolboy trickery.  Introduce us to the rest of the cast, a mysterious FBI agent and a violent cult leader named Animal? Without giving too much away, Agent Armstrong is the sexy and mysterious woman that recruits Twigs to track down The Animal. She's seemingly the polar opposite of Twigs, but when we get further into the story, we see that they're not so different when you peel away the layers. There's also a 10-page origin story of Agent Armstrong backing up the main story in THE EXPENDABLE ONE, and this sheds a little bit of light on why she does what she does. As far as the Animal goes, he's essentially the really, really bad guy. That's all you're allowed to know about for now. Haha The FBI come to Twigs with a feeling that Animal may actually be a werewolf whereas he's actually just a bloody nut, so why a Cult leader? Man, you're trying to get all of the good stuff out of me. Well, I won't give away too much here, but I can say that the benefit of being a cult leader is that you tend to have followers. That's all you're getting! Haha How about inspirations that lead to this story? Listening to Henry Rollins and watching Brotherhood Of The Wolf? Inspirations? Hmmm. To be honest, my inspiration was the title. A lot of my stories usually develop from a title that I like. I always wanted to do an "immortal" type story and then one day "The Expendable One" popped into my head. The next day I sat down and wrote the story. Unfortunately, I'm not all that profound and artsy. I just write and write what's interesting to me. How do you describe the book when pitching it to new readers, a classic tale of comedic gore and sexy societal thriller? I think I once said it's Steve Martin meets a really bloody Steve Martin. I like that pitch, even though it doesn't say anything about the story itself. You've got a few other series coming up with Viper, could you tell us a little about them? Viper will be releasing a noir story with a major twist that I wrote and created this July called "A Dummy's Guide To Danger." It's a 4-issue mini drawn by the biggest find in comics... Ron Chan. He is amazing and this story is really my baby. We'll be announcing more on it soon and a 3-page preview will appear in Viper's Free Comic Book Day offering.  Viper is also releasing a 4-issue horror anthology this summer that I wrote called "Museum of Terror," which features Martin Abel on art and then a 4-issue adventure/comedy book that I wrote and created called "Imaginary Friends" will drop later this year with art by Dustin Evans.When you've got artists like these, who are adept in a few styles do you have a particular idea how you want them to approach the work or do you just say "I trust you, go nuts"? I usually write the story without having any idea what artist is going to be working on the book. I would say 90% of my projects had an artist attached after the fact, but I'm pretty open to an artist being able to bring his own artistic expression to a book. There are some books where I have a "vision" and I'll try to have the artist bring that vibe, but most of the time I write the story, give certain boundaries to follow that are needed for the flow of the story, and then kind of let the artist loose. I can't draw a stick figure, so I respect artists and what they do. I want the artists I work with to feel like they're bringing their own flavour to my stories and not just come off as hired cattle. Now that you're assistant publisher with Viper feel free to pimp what's up and coming with the company as well? A lot is happening with Viper this year and people will be pleasantly surprised by the additions to their publishing roster. First and foremost you can't mention Viper without talking about the upcoming Dead@17 ongoing. Josh Howard is onboard and the popular series is going regular starting this summer. It doesn't get much better than that. One of my other favourites is a series by Adam Cogan and Ryan Cody called VILLAINS. It's just a really well written story with some pretty hip art. People will dig it. And, I can't plug this next one enough, but for those who want a quality series worth the cover price, check out the first and second volumes of The MIDDLEMAN by Lost writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach. If you haven't read this, you're really missing out. Other than that, there are a handful of new projects also on slate for 2006 that are still under wraps, but people are welcome to visit the Viper Comics site to check out previews of some of the above-mentioned books and to track when new information on future releases becomes available. Considering your positive promoting experience with sites like MySpace, do you see yourself bringing Viper to the networking site as well?  Viper Comics does have a page at Myspace (MySpace.com/Vipercomics) and we will be upping our involvement there starting... well, immediately. Fans will be able to connect with us there and follow our happenings. It's a great place to network and connect with people, so Viper will certainly be accessible to fans through the monster that is Myspace.Parting Thoughts? It's out of my hands now and in the hands of readers. I've got my fingers crossed that it all works out, but there's nothing more that I can do. For people that want to reach out to me, they can do so at www.myspace.com/jasonmburns. Be sure to check out our EXPENDABLE ONE POPPREVIEW for a special look at the forthcoming graphic novel.
 Jonathan Ellis is Co-Editor in Chief of PopImage  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
Jason Burns is a music journalist turned editor turned writer turned new assistant publisher of Viper Comics and he's bringing his talent to light with the forthcoming full colour original graphic novel, THE EXPENDABLE ONE. 
