SR: It really sounds like you're taking the right approach to the Death Dealer character, just the emphasis on the action, and the savagery. I think that's not only going to be a satisfying comic, I think it's going to be, it's probably going to be popular, too. That sounds like what audiences want.
Bisley: Well, I think it's going to, I think they do want it. He's nothing but the very, very essence of death, I mean the very representation of someone that's almost like the Grim Reaper kind of thing, you know. He represents all that.
SR: That's what Frazetta said when he was talking about him one time. He said, he was saying that the Death Dealer's like a death symbol, but beyond that, I hardly know what he is, he said. He's not a cowboy. He's not a spaceman.
Bisley: (Laughter)...I always thought of him as someone who just appears...I think you don't really know where the hell he comes from.
SR: He just sort of appears and disappears?
Bisley: That's right, he's the guy who appears on the horizon just at the right moment. And I don't think whether he's good or bad. I don't know. But he's almost like a judge, you know. He's more like a guy who judges the situation and takes out the ones he feels need it, but I think this is the way we're approaching the comic is that he's such a powerful entity, so strong and everything else, that every nobleman, every bigshot in the entire planet, get every single one of their very, very best warriors just to take the guy out, he's so dangerous. Because they can't control him, you know? He's gonna fuck up the whole deal so they've gotta try and take the guy out.
SR: Oh, like he's a force of nature?
Bisley: He's a force of nature almost, yeah. But he's almost like you know, the good side and the bad side that conflict on either side. But you can never judge him. You can never know where the hell the guy is coming from, and because of this of course, people fear him enormously. He can just crop up anytime and just destroy an entire army at will, just through the ferocity of that axe and those arms, you know? So, in the story they basically try and take him out, just a huge gathering, and he fights for like a day. There's not like a fight that happens over, like, hours. It happens over seasons, you know what I mean? Bisley: And it's just like carnage continuously, okay, they have a tea break, maybe, but...that kind of thing, he's totally unstoppable.
SR: Is the Death Dealer going to exist in the real world or is this like a fantasy world?
Bisley: This is like the real world. I don't want to do Lord of the bloody Rings or anything like that. I think it's going to be very much like in the Robert E. Howard world. You know, you see specters, you see ghosts, and you fear the dark and things like that. He's kind of like almost a nightmare image as are his own opponents are kind of nightmarish. But I don't want to do silly green monsters jumping around with dripping saliva and looking stupid.
SR: I think one of the things I meant by that question, too, is the Death Dealer going to visit actual historical periods, you know like the Hundred Years War or something?
Bisley: Well then we never thought of that. We just put it in it's set in the time when it's like Russia, in Siberia, you know, kind of the Dark Ages. Always it's going to be in the Dark Ages, but I suppose he could appear any time, I suppose, like in the future or in the past, maybe he's been around ever since the beginning, you know? Maybe he's some kind of like, some race that he's the last one who kind of lives forever, kind of thing, you know? I don't know. I mean this is just it, I don't know. I suppose if he can't die, it's not so much his spirit, his very entity can't die. But the way we're working it, it's not a particular individual that has this strength and power, it's all in the helmet and the axe and the whole shit, you know? It's, this is where I explain it, but we've got a beginning where this one character is having this huge, huge battle with like thousands and thousands of people, and he's kind of like almost the only one left, right? And he knows that there's a gathering every year, and he's compelled to go to this huge keep, this huge castle, this black castle guarded by, like these huge like panthers and things like that, you know? This place that no one goes to. Birds don't sing. Flowers don't grow. And so he enters the building, and I won't tell you what happens after that. Just imagine.
SR: Okay. So, have you done any layouts or anything on the first issue or do you just have ideas?
Bisley: It's all mental, mental. I do not do layouts. I just always just work it out in my head and then I just get down and crack on with it.
SR: So, that's how you do a page, you'll just sit down, you have the idea for the page and just start pencilling it?
Bisley: Yeah, like I said, it just kind of happens. I know...It's almost like it's not so much what to do, but what to leave out because I've got so many things I want to do. And suddenly I'm thinking of all the different great poses I can do just to really maximize the Death Dealer and bring him across, because this is, it's not easy. You think about just how powerful Frank's images are, you've gotta kind of make that work, you know, and so...
SR: Trying to match that kind of power is a real challenge.
Bisley: I can do it though.
SR: I'm sure you can, man. I'm sure you can.
end of part four. The last part comes next folks!
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