Last summer, acclaimed writer Christopher Priest took over Vampirella, giving Dynamite Entertainment one of its most successful relaunches. As that series continues to gain momentum, Priest is launching sacredsix, a spinoff ensemble series that will bring together many of the title's horror-tinged supporting characters. Launching this May, Priest is joined by Jae Lee and Gabriel Ibarra to craft a tale that has Lilith lead a group of female vampires to the vampire town of Sacred, Georgia. which is being targeted by wealthy, conservatives with their own sinister agenda.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Priest discussed how the upcoming comic book series came about, the enduring appeal of Vampirella after over fifty years since her debut and his hopes for the new series in the current national zeitgeist.

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How did the plans to launch a spinoff series focused on this ensemble come about behind-the-scenes?

Christopher Priest: I actually don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say Vampirella’s 50th anniversary launched really well, and Dynamite thought an expansion of our [Star Trek reboot-style] Kelvin Universe version of Vampirella might be a good idea. Vampirella has a wonderful shared universe of pals and gals so why not?

But let me start by emphasizing “sacred” is a PLACE, the City of Sacred, Georgia. The Six are the BAD GUYS-- a fundamentalist militant wing of a shadowy organization called the Lumea Următoare -- the Next World -- bent on global domination. Obviously, Lilith intends to knock these folks off so our ladies can take their place.

You and Jae Lee have been looking to collaborate for some time, and it's been several years since he has done interiors. What was it that brought him back to interiors to illustrate the flashback sequences for this series?

[Laughs] Again, I don’t know. That was handled by folks above my pay grade. But, wow, several years ago Jae contacted me out of the blue and suggested we work on something. We pitched a bunch of ideas back and forth I think, mostly for Marvel, but could not settle on something Jae wanted to draw that I wanted to write. So when his name came up for this, well, I was thrilled.

Though Pantha does have a solid fanbase, she's not as well known as Vampirella. What is it about her that you felt made her the right choice to focus the initial flashbacks around? How will you approach revamping her origin story?

Well, it was and was not my call. The challenge was to draw characters from Vampirella’s universe and her buddy Pantha was, obviously, high on the list, as was her sister Draculina. Both get the Kelvin treatment in that they are, hopefully, familiar to fans who remember them while being completely fresh in our approach to them.

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Lilith has a huge connection with Vampirella herself, especially in your relaunch. What made her the right character to center the inciting incident of this new series around? What is your own draw to the character?

Oh, every X-Men team needs its Professor X. Lilith as scheming den mother is an obvious choice, something we’ve been planning since Vampirella #4. I love her a lot, I love writing her.

It is important to emphasize these women are not heroes. These are (literally) bloodthirsty supernatural killers who hate each other. They are a deeply dysfunctional team thrown together out of circumstance. This is not the Justice League with fangs. Lilith, as a combination of maybe Meryl Streep’s Devil Wears Prada character and perhaps a dash of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is the obvious choice to wield the gavel.

Jae Lee is a known talent, while Gabriel Ibarra is a new up-and-comer in the industry. How will their styles play against each other, and what do you expect Ibarra will bring to the series?

Well, for one thing, they are drawing stories set in two different time periods. Jae is telling the story of how Pantha came to be, while Gabriel, a delightfully dark, gritty Bernie Wrightson-esque new talent, is drawing our main continuity. Jae’s story takes place mostly in daylight, Gabriel’s mostly in darkness. Jae is awesome, Gabriel -- a great find by editor Matt Idelson -- is going to surprise a lot of people. The guy is incredible.

The series' logo has changed since its initial announcement in the Previews catalog. What was the reason for the change?

Scheduling. We had this project on the boards for a while but the decision was made to schedule it sooner than the creative team realized. We needed a graphic immediately to make promotional deadlines, so a temporary logo was created while Editor Matt worked with series letterer Willie Schubert and myself on the final version.

The opening story arc has the group of all women antiheroes take on a sinister wealthy conservative group in the Deep South preying on innocents. While that sort of foe might have once seemed like a caricature, these days, they're all too real. What made you want to tackle something so timely and potentially complicated in your very first arc?

I liked the idea of flipping the script, of evoking sympathy for the vampires. It’s an interesting challenge. More than that, sacredsix challenges our current zero-sum environment, where we’re all so divided and pointing fingers at one another.

While dealing with metaphors of vampires and zombies, sacredsix is about us. About all of us. It’s the towns, the clans, the ideologies, we live in. And, dammit, we’ve got to stop the crazy.

Vampirella was one of Dynamite's biggest launches in 2019; what is it that you think has made the character continue to appeal to comic book readers after all this time? After writing her for a year, what does the character mean to you, now?

I honestly struggle when asked this question. A lot of people confuse Vampirella with Elvira?! She’s a very controversial character, even more, these days. I got chastised for describing the sacredsix team as “bad girls,” even though I routinely run into cosplay folks at shows describing themselves that way and have read quotes from female authors describing characters as “bad girls,” but I guess “bad girls” are out now.

Vampirella has always been a very specific property -- a well-adjusted supernatural woman, self-possessed, liberated and empowered. The only times the character has not worked has been when we’ve tried to change her into something she’s not or, worse, have her conquered or dominated by others, especially male figures.

To me, she has always been a liberating figure; a kind person who is connecting to the reader. If you notice, the most successful Vampirella covers feature her making eye contact with the reader. She’s our friend. Like Deadpool, she’s in on the joke. She doesn’t take herself or her adventures too seriously, and her message is, “Relax, things will work out in the end.” And, you know what? They will.

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After a year, I have developed a great deal of affection for Vampirella and feel like I understand her a lot more. She is best represented by the café scene in issue #4 where Benny the Witch goads her into acting heroically by insinuating she’d allow innocent people to die, “...because vampires don’t do fire-rescue...?”

Vampirella is me, age 25 or so. Or perhaps you. She’s us, all of us, finding our place in a world that doesn’t understand us. Or, in my case, a world that often irrationally fears us. Like the single white woman in an elevator who becomes visibly nervous when I step in. What’s that about? I’m a guy. Just a guy. I walk and chew gum. I want what everybody else wants: to be accepted, to be able to compete for opportunities. I want to love and be loved. Vampi wants these things. But the circumstances of her unique character invites all of this drama.

By issue #4, she has these friends and this job and the supernatural things she does to protect mankind. By the time sacredsix launches, all of that has been taken away and lost in the world She’s turned to a nutty psychotherapist who doesn’t believe in vampires and thinks she’s crazy.

I have a great deal of empathy for Vampirella. I’ve applied that empathy to an entire town of Vampirellas. These vampires are not evil, not brooding, dark creatures of evil. They are bus drivers. Postal workers. College students. Dentists -- yes, vampire dentists. They are the hapless victims of evil, and they’ve banded together in this dinky town in the middle of nowhere. All they want is what Vampirella wants, what you and I want. But “righteous” people who obviously know better have chosen to spend billions of dollars to oppress them.

sacredsix is a morality play about class and cliques and clans, about ideology and the absurdity that has gripped our planet from the dawn of humanity -- wherein one group of people look down their snouts at another group of people and decide those folks are “less” than us, so we should take their stuff and oppress them. Or that “God” told us to wipe them out.

As an extension of that, what does sacredsix mean to you?

Write this down: Nobody Knows Nuthin.’ Nobody is always right, and nobody is always wrong. Nobody is always good, and nobody is always evil. While some might expect me to paint a caricature of conservative values with our City of Sacred, Georgia, I hope to explore that stereotype.

These days, I tend to ask people if they can catch a frisbee. If you can catch a frisbee, I want you to join us for frisbee golf. I don’t care who you voted for or what your color is or what your sexual orientation is. I don’t care if you can’t yodel or you like broccoli. We need to stop being led around by the stupid TV or the stupid social media and remind ourselves this is America, the greatest country on the globe. We are all Americans. It’s such a blessing and a privilege to be here. Stop the crazy. If you can catch a frisbee, you’re in.

Welcome to Ashthorne, GA. Buckle up.

Written by Christopher Priest and illustrated by Gabriel Ibarra and Jae Lee, sacredsix #1 goes on sale this May from Dynamite Entertainment.

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