At FEARnet, it’s our job to check out all things horror for you, the loyal fan.  Whether it’s the latest gory flick, the most terrifying video game, most macabre music, or a suspenseful novel, we want you to be fully informed.  So when we come across a company that consistently creates solid horror comics, we put on our interviewer hats and get serious.  Besides publishing the horror comic mainstay Hack/Slash, DDP has also released a comic based on Chucky from Child’s Play, comics utilizing the Halloween franchise, a series following the exploits of a demon, Mercy Sparx, and Spooks, a comic about a team of investigators who battle otherwordly beasties.  Add to that the Army of Darkness comics, along with Devil’s Due’s take on the Troma universe!  That’s a hard list to ignore, so we got the dish on the people who keep this comic-book company running.

We spoke with Josh Blaylock, president of Devil’s Due, about how the company began. “I started the company in late ’99, early 2000, originally as a small-press indie publisher…I really always wanted comic books to be the end goal, though.  And through licensing, that’s how we were able to get on the map… We were put on the map in 2001 by our ’80s comics, kicking off an ‘80s retro revival in the comic book industry, with G.I. Joe and Voltron and Micronauts, and then we branched out to become not just an ‘80s company but also a global licensing company (with) original properties.”  DDP didn’t just bring these properties back for nostalgia’s sake, they reconnected the material with its original audience… “Seeing it brought back the right way, and…a little bit more badass, a little more edgy…that’s sort of the formula for success there.”

When the company was ready to expand, Stephen Christy (now head of the L.A. office and Development Manager for DDP) came in with a mission.  As he explains, “It’s funny, when I came on board the mandate that I really wanted to do was expand beyond G.I. Joe, expand into original content, expand the breadth and quality of titles that we’re doing.  And really when we came on board, the original content that we wrote stories for were our horror titles.  I mean, Hack/Slash is kind of the bedrock of our creator-owned comics right now.  I think the horror comics in general have been really good for Devil’s Due.”

Hack/Slash, for those of you living under a rock (or, same difference, in a town without a good comic shop), follows the adventures of Cassie Hack (pictured above), a hot “final girl”, whose mother ended up a psycho killer.  All grown up and ready to kick serious monster ass, she hunts down slashers with her monstrous friend Vlad.  “Hack/Slash,” says Blaylock, “made people pay attention to our original properties.”  Comic creator Tim Seeley, explains, how the comic first came about: “I was sick with some kind of horrible autumn Chicago flu thing, and was home for three days.  Right around Halloween every station would run some kind of marathon.  That way you could get back to back all the Halloween movies and all the Friday the 13th movies.  So I just got obsessed and pretty much just watched all these movies back to back which I’d seen before, but when you’re addled up on cold medicine sitting in a room by yourself watching 13 hours of these movies straight, you start to notice some patterns which kind of made it like they were all the same universe.  Like ‘This was the way the world worked in the Slasher World…’  So I was in the bath trying to wash off all the sick sweat and boogers and I just was, like, ‘There should be a girl who goes from all of these scenarios.’” Of the creation of Cassie, Seeley says, “Cassie was based off of girls that I had a thing for.  I always had a thing for sort of punk-rock goth girls, so she was based off of all the girls that I wished I was dating at the time.”  Hack/Slash blew the doors open for Devil’s Due.  Not only in terms of original, creator-owned content, but in terms of horror content as well.

Today DDP’s reputation for horror has been solidified, not only by Hack/Slash, but also by series like Spooks.  Christy comments, “Spooks is kind of like what we all wish Van Helsing could have been.  It’s a really fun adventure with these incredible monsters all beautifully designed by Adam Archer.” Spooks follows the DOSD, or Department of Supernatural Defense, as it investigates and take down, you guessed it, supernatural threats to the U.S.  The new series Spooks: Omega Team broadens the scope of the original, taking the adventures to the extreme with a group of no-questions-asked assassins.

One can’t deny the power that franchising horror has brought Devil’s Due, licensing Chucky and Halloween.  Christy explains what makes DDP’s horror licenses different…“They’re not just a paycheck or a way to have a book out there with a recognizable character.  We try to stay as true as possible to what the fans of the series and the properties want and expect.  And the most important thing that we do is we treat these stories and these characters with respect.”  It’s this respect for the franchises that keeps fans coming back each month.

When asked if the goal was to become a horror comics publisher, Blaylock remarks, “I just sort of woke up one day and we had become a major publisher of horror materials.  I think it comes from a lot of genuine fans within the horror company who are fans of a lot of this stuff.”

So what does the future hold for Devil’s Due?  According to these guys, a lot.  Along with a new comic called Brutal that’s being executive produced by Kevin Spacey, a comic called To Hell and Back that’s drawing talents “from the horror community,” and the “supernatural cop procedural” Echoes of the Damned, fans can also look forward to the expansion of their favorite series.  Seeley tells us that upcoming Hack/Slash issues will “…get back to Chicago and treat Vlad’s origins with the same eye that we treat Cassie’s in the Re-Animator crossover.” As for the upcoming second volume of Chucky, “We’re really pushing Chucky hard this coming year just because it’s a fun license and we’re glad to have it.”

For those familiar with Devil’s Due’s titles, keep an eye out for the new issues, and for those new to the publishing company, we hope you’ll take the time to check these guys out.  They’re treating horror with the same respect and admiration you do.

For more info on DDP, check out Devil's Due Website.