Broken Frontier

Zenescope Entertainment is starting a new chapter in the story of their universe, named Inferno. BF turned up the heat for the writer Ralph Tedesco.

In Zenescope's new mini-series Grimm Fairy Tales: Inferno, Tedesco is telling the story of  "Grace in the city" where she is lost and abused and where a secret from her past might just set her free.

BROKEN FRONTIER: You’ve been carefully expanding your corner of the Zenescope universe. Was (Dante’s) Inferno a project that’s been waiting in the wings for some time now?

RALPH TEDESCO: It's definitely something that we came up with a while ago once Raven wrote the Mercy Dante character into Grimm Fairy Tales #29.  As soon as we introduced Mercy we knew she would be playing a larger role in Grimm universe but without giving too much away we knew she would meet a certain fate but we also needed to tell her story.  That's when the idea for this mini-series hit us.

BF: Did you change the name of the title from Dante's Inferno to Inferno for a specific reason?
 
RT: Well there are a couple other Dante's Inferno titles hitting the market both in film and comics right now and we just didn't want there to be confusion in the market.  Plus after I wrote the initial draft I realized how loosely based the story is on the original work so I wanted readers to realize that although there are elements of the original in our version, there is still a big difference between ours and Alighieri's classic.

BF: Is it necessary for new readers to first pick up Grimm Fairy Tales #29 or Grimm Fairy Tales #41 to get the back story and build-up to the new series?
 
RT: It's not necessary but it also wouldn't hurt.  Being familiar with the Grimm Fairy Tales series in general is definitely helpful since readers will see some of the characters from that series in this one.  But we'll also be including a prequel page in issue #1 to help fill readers in who might be new to the universe.

BF: Can you tell us a bit more about Mercy's introduction in Grimm Fairy Tales #29 and Grimm Fairy Tales #41 and her connection to Inferno's Grace?

RT: I'm not giving too much away by telling you in issue 1 you'll learn that Grace's last name is also Dante and she is actually Mercy Dante's sister.  If you recall Mercy met an unfortunate fate in Grimm #41 but there's a very interesting reason we're following Grace in this series.

BF: The premise reads "Jacob's Ladder meets The Long Kiss Goodnight in this explosive mini-series". Now I have never seen Ladder but loved The Long Kiss, so help me connect the dots…

RT: You better go watch Jacob's Ladder hahah...

BF: I will. And then I will get back to you for sure! One of the artist for this series is the famous Joe Benitez, a comics veteran known mostly for Weapon Zero at Top Cow and Soulfire at Aspen… How did Joe surface at Zenescope?
 
RT: Joe is only providing covers right now.  He's way too busy with his other gigs to do interiors for us at the moment but I'd love to get him on something sooner or later.  Joe's cover work is incredible so I'm thrilled to have him doing some of those for this series. A very talented artist named Gabriel Rearte is actually illustrating the series.  He drew Grimm #41 which was basically the prequel to this series and he just finished Grimm issue #44 as well and I just want to say that his work on that issue is nothing short of mesmerizing.  Jason Embury is the colorist on this series and colors Gabriel's pencils beautifully.

BF: I remember Rearte from Stan Winston's Realm Of The Claw. Lovely artist indeed! Now, you also stated Inferno is a mini-series. How many issues can we expect?
 
RT: It's going to be 5 issues in all. There's a lot to squeeze in only 5 issues so readers should expect to get their money's worth in each issue.

BF: Finally; coming back to the remarks in the first question; can we expect intercompany crossovers that go further than the careful nursing of a coherent Zenescope universe?

RT: All I'll say to that is.....perhaps.

Grimm Fairy Tales: Inferno #1 is solicited for May 2010 and can be pre-ordered at all self-respecting comic book shops!