Broken Frontier

Paul Dini’s Jingle Belle has become a December treat for anyone – young and old – who loves a good old Christmas comic. She’s back this year in Jingle Belle: Santa Claus Vs. Frankenstein, her first book under the Top Cow tree.

The Jingle Belle recipe is very simple: throw a block of wood on the fire, prepare a delicious cup of hot cocoa, sit back in a comfy couch and read along.

BROKEN FRONTIER: For people who haven't read any of Jingle Belle’s previous adventures, can you revisit the time you conceived the character? What inspired you to create her?

PAUL DINI: Actually it was a holiday card I received from a well-known film director and his family. It was a very sweet card, but it started me thinking about what it must be like to have a father that means so much to kids all over the world, and the contrast with how his own kids see him every day. As it was around Christmas, I transposed the idea to Santa Claus, and Jingle Belle was basically born. It's funny because for a while the folks at the Jim Henson Company were very gung-ho about making a movie version of Jing, and that idea of the magical dad and his kids struck an emotional chord with them.

BF: Come to think of it, I can’t recall her origin story myself. How did Santa end up with a daughter?

PD: I did some tinkering with the original legend and made Mrs. Claus, who has never really had that much of a backstory, the queen of the elves that work in Santa's workshop. The elves had been enslaved by a wicked character and a younger, more Thor-like version Santa freed them and their captured queen.

Queen Mirabelle and Santa hit it off, and the elves decided to join Santa and help him reward good kids around the world. After a couple hundred years, baby Jing was born and Santa being Santa, he showered her with every toy in existence. A couple hundred elf-years later, Jing's a teenager, and Santa has to put up with the reality that his adorable baby girl is now a spoiled brat.

BF: Jingle Belle’s got a decent fan following, as her adventures around Christmas time have become a fixture on the comics scene, first at Dark Horse and now at Top Cow. Why the move from the Horse to the Cow?

PD: Because I had been looking to establish a Dinicartoons imprint with Top Cow, it seemed only natural to kick things off around the holidays with a Jingle Belle one-shot. I loved working with Mike Richardson and the guys at Dark Horse, but after three years, we all felt Jing had sort of run her course there.

BF: Has writing these stories become a fixed part of your schedule each year?

PD: Pretty much. I didn't do one last year because I was working on other things and I didn't have a really compelling story. This year, with all the focus on politics, and some current articles about Santa's relevancy to kids in the modern world, this new story seemed to pop fully formed into my head.

BF: This time, Belle and Santa are squaring off against Frankenstein. How did Franky find his way to the Arctic?

PD: According to the ending of Mary Shelley's book, he's always been there. This year's Jingle Belle story is a direct sequel to the novel, albeit a very wacky one. Jing comes across the monster's frozen carcass while snowboarding. She thaws him out, then takes him back to the workshop to get him a job. Hey, I said it was wacky.

BF: From your dealings with fans, have you found that Jingle Belle has drawn more response from kids or adults?

PD: It's more adults, and young adults who have grown up watching the classic animated Christmas specials. They enjoy the book the same way they enjoy repeats of the “Grinch” or “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” That's not to say kids don't like Jing, but not that many, comparatively speaking, have seen the comics.  

In talking to parent friends of mine with small children, most of their kids are unaware of comic books until they see a movie or cartoon show with a character like Spider-Man or Batman in them. Some parents know comic book shops exist, but most wouldn't take their little kids there. They feel they are scary, unwelcome places. I know, I know, for the most part they are wrong. But I'm not talking about longtime readers or fans with kids, I'm talking rank-and-file parents who may have read comics off the spinner rack at their local drug store 30 years ago, but have fallen completely out of touch with comics since then.

Many of those mom and pops see the big ol' poster of Witchblade in the comic store window, hear Slipknot or some other band blaring over the boom box and keep right on walking. The sad truth is, if they pick up comics at all for their kids, they get the Disney or Nick or Archie digests they see at the checkout counter at the grocery store. That's not to say they wouldn't like Jingle Belle if they could find it, but few independent comics have that kind of exposure.

Two years ago the TV show THE WAR AT HOME did an episode set at a comic con and as they could not get any product from the two major publishers. They asked a couple independent comics creators if they could feature their products as part of the set. Well, my wife, Misty, and I created this big Dinicartoons booth for the show, and it featured cute shots of Jingle Belle, Sheriff Ida Red and Polly the Halloween witch. Virtually every mom and girl connected to the show came running to the booth to ask where they could get those comics. "Finally!" one of them said. "Girl characters my daughter and I can relate to!" We gave out a ton of free JINGLE BELLE and MUTANT, TEXAS books along with the addresses to local comics shops.

I don't know if that will translate into more sales down the road, but hopefully Jing will find herself with more opportunities to make inroads with those potential readers. The kids who have seen Jingle Belle love her, and I'm hoping to do an anthology someday that reprints the best of her adventures. I think Jing would find a bigger mainstream audience if we could get it into the humor section of chain bookstores.  

BF: Have you already started your Holiday shopping spree?

PD: Are you kidding? I'm done. I always start in late September and finish by Thanksgiving. There have been too many Xmases where I've been caught flat-busted at New Year’s because I did all my shopping at the last minute. I get it out of the way early and do most of it online. Malls give me the whim-whams.  

BF: I’m a last-minute shopper myself, but thus far, I’ve managed to stay out of trouble. [Laughs] Any gifts in particular you hope to get yourself this year?

PD: I'm really into the ukulele now. I've been practicing for the last three years and have been taking serious lessons this past year. I have a couple of nice ones, but this year I asked Jing for a banjolele, kind of a hybrid of a banjo and a uke popular with British music hall entertainers in the early 20th century. There are very few places that even make them any more. Jing said if the book did well this year she might talk her old man into making a new one. I repeat: MIGHT.

The new Jingle Belle one-shot is in stores as of this week.