By Zack Quaintance — This week marks the debut of a new #1 from Vault Comics, which is always something we get excited about here on this website. We get even more excited about it when we’ve read the comic in advance, and when it’s a comic as outright excellent as The Devil’s Red Bride, a gritty and well-researched story of feudal Japan, complete of course with samurai and some truly excellent character-driven plot twists.

In advance of the official release of The Devil’s Red Bride #1, we have an interview today with the books writer Sebastian Girner and artist John Bivens. You can check out my conversation with them below!

The Devil’s Red Bride Creative Team Interview

ZACK QUAINTANCE: First of all, I absolutely loved this comic. Can I ask how the creative team was assembled? I’ve been fans of your separate works, and was really thrilled with how well your skillsets as creators came together for this project…

SEBASTIAN GIRNER: Thanks a lot! John and I had worked together on Justin Jordan and Kyle Strahm's SPREAD a few years back, so when the first ideas for The Devil's Red Bride started coming together I reached out to him to see if he'd be interested. John's art seemed a natural fit for a really bloody and gruesome horror comic, but he's also a master at quiet and human moments, and I hope readers will also see just how great he is at comedic timing, injecting humanity and humor into even the grimmest stories. So we developed the pitch together and brought it to Vault Comics and were thrilled when Adrian and the Vault team were on board to publish.

JOHN BIVENS: I got to know Sebastian while working on SPREAD with Justin Jordan. I had been in to finish up the last three trades of the series, and Justin had made the smart move to bring in Sebastian as an editor. He kept us all on track, which was awesome. Later on I saw he had written a book called Shirtless Bear Fighter, and since we seemed to get along well enough, I mentioned if he ever wanted to pitch a project I would be interested. 

For colors, Iris had been an intern in my studio (World Monster HQ) and had already worked on CULT CLASSIC: CREATURE FEATURE with me. 

Finally, with VAULT… I feel like I’ve formed a really great relationship with them. They publish the kind of work I want to see made, and it’s like being part of a cool family.

ZACK: I heard you on Off Panel Sebastian talking about your deep knowledge of and appreciation for samurai comics, and I wanted to ask — what do you think it is about that era and that culture that lends itself so well to comics? From Usagi Yojimbo to Lone Wolf and Cub to your book and on, it feels like every last samurai or samurai-adjacent comic is superb.

SEBASTIAN: I think Samurai, much like Knights, Cowboys, Gangsters, or other genre fiction that stems from turbulent eras of history, are just generally intriguing and malleable to tell different kinds of human stories. All the elements that make for a good story are already there, humans are natural story generators as well as storytellers and consumers. And then, of course, you can still choose to explore the quasi-mythologized and highly fantastical aspects or you can dig a bit deeper into the matters and discover aspects of class, race, and systems of power.

With Samurai especially you have access to such a range of themes of the human experience because here you had a minority warrior caste that was trained from birth via strict codes of martial conduct to govern over a country of peasants, craftsmen, and merchants. The experiences they went through and the lives they were expected to live (or leave at a moment's notice) were in such diametrical opposition to anyone around them, it was rife with all kinds of conflicts, which, as we know, always make for the best stories. And comics are just simply the best storytelling medium, so it stands to reason Samurai + Comics = Greatness. Simple math.

ZACK: John, I’ve always sort of thought of you as a top-tier monster and pulp horror cartoonist, perhaps because I enjoyed your other recent Vault work on Cult Classic so much. Is this the first samurai or historical comic you’ve worked on, and was your approach to the material different than it was on something like Cult Classic?

JOHN: Thanks! My approach was mostly the same; because Sebastian wrote to my strengths…or at least the stuff I enjoy drawing. Very similar to CREATURE FEATURE, one of the first things I talked about with my collaborators (Sebastian and Eliot) were the movies I had in mind when picturing the story.

ZACK: Sebastian, I know you’ve done some great work as an editor with TKO Studios. I tend to think of Adrian Wassel as Vault’s not-so-secret editor. What was it like working with him on this project? Was there a level of comfort and understanding since you two mutually are making some of the best books in all of indie comics?

SEBASTIAN: Working with Adrian was a wonderful experience. I know it seems like two editors would bonk creative heads, but I was really glad to have someone like Adrian who brings passion, imagination, and craft to the table, and also trusts creators and allows them to press onward a bit, even if it's off the beaten path into the thicket (or a blood swamp in our case.) As a writer, The Devil's Red Bride is one of the most challenging stories I've attempted so far, and I was very thankful to have an experienced editor backing me, asking questions, offering solutions, and keeping me from getting too lost in the weeds.

ZACK: John, I really loved the gigantic gruesome and detailed spread on like page three of this comic...with giant battles (especially those with horses) being sort of a cliched artist bugaboo, can I ask how you’re doing after having to lay all that down so early into this project?

JOHN: Pages like that I start and work on over a period of time while working on other pages that feel like dessert. These usually have a monster, or a fun to choreograph fight scene.

 This lets me feel like I’m making headway, without rushing through a page I need to give more thought.

ZACK: Finally, can I ask you both how much historical research went into your work on this? One of the things I really enjoyed was how real the story and world felt, leaning more toward historical fiction than the genre often does.

JOHN: Sebastian handled the real research. Most of my research was collecting references, and then making any changes that Sebastian would point out to me.

SEBASTIAN: I have a degree in Japanese History, Language, and Culture and I finally got to use it for something! I brought a certain bedrock level of historical knowledge to the table from the start. Beyond that the period in question here, the time between the 16th and 17th century where Japan went from the chaos of a century of civil war to the ultra-rigid and ironclad societal structure of the Edo-period, is a personal favorite of mine that I already knew a lot about.  So my home library held most of the kind of books I would have needed already. I did spend time pouring over some specialized publications like Everyday Things in Premodern Japan by Susan B. Hanley, and the Handbook to Life in Medival and Early Modern Japan, by William E. Deal to gain a deeper understanding of everyday items, customs, and to compile materials for John so we were drawing on historical reference whenever possible. The catalog of the Met's Art of the Samurai exhibition was also invaluable for reference of the beautifully ornate armor and swords of the period.

So never let anyone tell you making a comic about violent devil swordfights isn't a deadly serious scholarly pursuit!

Read more great creator interviews!

Read our review of The Devil’s Red Bride #1!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.