If recent box office totals are any indicator, audiences around the world are interested in seeing kaiju get completely obliterated right now, and comic book creators Dave Dwonch, Brockton McKinney and Magenta King play on these genre expectations with postmodern, freewheeling fun in their new Dark Horse Comics series Jenny Zero. Following the daughter of a celebrated kaiju hunter in a world where colossal titan attacks are a regular occurrence, the new comic book pokes fun at the genre with its hard-partying protagonist while delivering the earth-shattering action.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Dwonch and McKinney detail the inspiration behind the new comic book series, share their deep love of '80s pop culture and tease what readers can expect from the title this April.
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CBR: How did the story of Jenny Zero come about?
Brockton McKinney: A few years ago, Dave and I were lucky enough to be guests at the amazing Puerto Rico Comic-Con, and one night we ended up locking ourselves out of our rented apartment. As we sat on the curb, drinking Medalla on this gorgeous night, inspiration hit, and we began making up a story about an ass-kicking lush who fought giant monsters. We started acting out the action scenes, right there in the street.
Dave Dwonch: It must have looked bananas, the two of us monster fake-fighting in the streets. When inspiration strikes, Brock and I are known to go full cosplay, complete with beer cans standing in for crushable buildings. We literally attack ideas as often as they strike us. You should see us at conventions. We are “those guys.”
McKinney: We certainly are…But in a good way! We can’t wait to interact with the con-goers. For us, that’s the best part of conventions. We wanna hear your stories. We have stories to tell you. Bring us a beer? You have just made a best friend.
Jenny is a hard-partying wild child when we first see her. How has it been crafting the story from her perspective into this big, bombastic world?
Dwonch: We just drop the readers into this insane world and dare them to keep up. It’s a lot like the writing room, actually. Brock and I leapfrog each other on the script, and there’s a level of daring, one-upsmanship that comes with the method.
McKinney: For sure. We had Jenny and her personality, her problems, and her powers locked down first. Then we created the universe around her. It was the natural way for us to world-build, because we knew what she was capable of, and what we wanted to put her through. After series artist Magenta King came aboard and we saw what the world could look like, it was absolutely inspiring. Everything grew from there, as we plotted the strange events of this earth from the 1960s to present. The escapades of the Action Science Police alone took up an entire notebook!
We're at the point where kaiju stories are perhaps at their most visible in the American mainstream. What do you think the enduring appeal of the genre is?
McKinney: It’s skyscraper-tall beasts with superpowers! What's not to love?! I’m over-the-moon about all the recent incredible kaiju content. Dave and I are the same age, we’re ‘80s kids who grew up with reruns of Godzilla and Ultraman on cable. From the moment we saw those actors dressed as massive creatures, fighting robots in a miniature model of a city, we were hooked for life. I think a lot of kids were. Now, it’s amazing to see the people who grew up treasuring this genre become the creators who want to share that adoration in their own unique ways. And personally we really wanted to add our love of alcohol to the mix of gargantuan behemoths. Then Jenny came along and showed us how.
Dwonch: There’s just something so kitschy cool about the whole genre, you know? It’s funny, Jenny Zero was slated to be released at SDCC last year, but COVID threw off the schedule, big time. There are a lot of giant people running around smashing other giant things in 2021, but it’s really cool to see how different they all are. It feels like it’s evolving with the times, and that is VERY cool.
How has it been working with Magenta King on bringing this story to life?
Dwonch: Magenta King just gets it. His work has been influenced by all of that cool shit Brock described, and finding him was a godsend for sure. From the first sketch, Magenta came out swinging, and added so much texture to the world we were creating.
McKinney: And Dave found Magenta the very same day we finished the first treatment, so it felt like it was meant to be. He and Megan Huang, who colored this first issue, created a look and feel to Jenny’s world that inspired Dave and I to push ourselves even harder as writers. Because it looks SO damn good, we knew we had to pull our weight!
There is a kind of psychedelic, surreal quality even to the quieter moments in this story. What was it about bringing those visual sensibilities to this world?
McKinney: Dave and I constantly try to one-up each other on the “weird factor” of the book [with] freakish ideas and characters but set against this more real-world backdrop. When Magenta King started sending in his design sketches for these outlandish concepts we’d come up with, it blew our minds because even the cityscapes took on this remarkable and beautifully bizarre quality. We loved it. And Megan’s colors on that first issue were really the icing on the cake, firmly establishing the otherworldly feel of the series. Issue Two visually ups the ante on the abnormal locales, and that was very much informed by the artist’s choices from the first issue.
What can readers expect as this new series kicks off?
Dwonch: Pure insanity, over the top action, humor, violence and heart. I’m a big fan of DC’s legacy characters like Wally West, Damian Wayne and Connor Hawke. This book has that sort of sensibility, as Jenny stumbles to fill her father’s very large shoes. And did we mention the sex, drugs and giant monsters?
McKinney: Well, we did now! Good luck washing that image outta yer mind.
Written by Dave Dwonch and Brockton McKinney and illustrated by Magenta King, Jenny Zero #1 goes on sale April 14 from Dark Horse Comics.