After seeing Geppetto die at the hands of vampires, Pinocchio swears revenge in this darkly funny graphic novel. As the vampires plot the enslavement of mankind, only a one-puppet army stands in their way. But will a wooden boy and his endless supply of stakes—courtesy of plenty of lies and his elongating nose—be enough to save the day?

We spoke with writer, Van Jensen, who also works for Top Shelf Productions, about the book.

The Big Bad Wolf: How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Van Jensen: Actually, I didn't. Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer owes its genesis to Dusty. A few years back, we were both working at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper, and Dusty randomly sketched Pinocchio killing a vampire on some scratch paper. He showed it to me, I laughed, and that was that.

After I moved to Atlanta two years ago, Dusty called me out of the blue one day and asked if I would write a graphic novel script for him about Pinocchio killing vampires, and of course I said, "Yes!" From there, we bounced ideas back and forth to build from just a one-off joke to a fully realized story. Then I wrote the script over a few weeks last summer, and Dusty started banging out one awesome page after another.

The Big Bad Wolf: Lets talk about the main character, Pinocchio. He obviously isn’t the same little kid that we all know from the fairy tales. Can you talk about this version of the character?

Van Jensen: I'd guess that the main Pinocchio character people know is the version from the Disney cartoon, who was pretty much a cheerful, innocuous type. But if you look at Carlo Collodi's original fairy tale, Pinocchio is a much more sinister, mean-spirited kid. A brat, really, who then gradually becomes more mature after going through some very dark adventures (in one, he's robbed and hanged).

I tried to stay true to Collodi's version of the character as much as I could, aside from the fact that our version never became a real boy. This Pinocchio has rough edges, is spontaneous, a little self-centered but still ultimately wants to be good.

The Big Bad Wolf: Can you talk about how seeing Geppetto murdered by vampires changes this little boy’s psyche?

Van Jensen: We set up Geppetto's death as a turning point for Pinocchio. Before that, he was still pretty immature and carefree. Now, he sees that the world can be a dark place, and so he's become much more emotionally guarded, even around his very small circle of friends. Geppetto's death also gave Pinocchio a single-minded focus on revenge. He's got one goal: wiping every last vampire off the face of the earth.

The Big Bad Wolf: What can we expect from the vampires in this comic?

Van Jensen: I probably shouldn't admit this, but I'm pretty sick and tired of vampires. They're sort of the zeitgeist now, with the Twilight books and True Blood, etc., but for the most part, we've seen the same iteration of vampires again and again since Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Kind of like how I went back to the original Pinocchio fairy tale, I also started researching the origin of the vampire myth. And how it began was that people in the Middle Ages would leave dead bodies out, and those bodies would swell and turn colors. But because no one understood decomposition, people assumed the dead were returning to life and transforming into monsters. Gross, right?

Our vampires are much closer to that original version. They're pretty disgusting corpses risen from the grave. They're not fancy or eloquent. They have a mouthful of sharp teeth, not a couple of fangs. But they still drink blood. Lots and lots of blood.

The Big Bad Wolf: Is there a main vampire controlling the killings?

Van Jensen: can't give away too much on this, since it would spoil the book. But yes, there is a vampire in charge. But there might just be another, scarier vampire above that vampire. And if Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer sells well enough, Dusty and I might just have plans for a trilogy to reveal who that is.

The Big Bad Wolf: What can we expect from this book in terms of blood and gore?

Van Jensen: The way Dusty and I approached the book was that we wanted to make it funny and scary primarily, but not overly gory. I'm not a fan of gore (My favorite scary movie is Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone).

Still, there is violence. Vampires kill people. Pinocchio and his friends kill vampires. You see some blood (in black and white) and some vampires turning into flaming skeletons as they die. There are a few really intense scenes that I can't give away, but I'd say probably anyone under the 10-12 age range would be too young.

The Big Bad Wolf: Is this an ongoing, or mini series?

Van Jensen: It's a 128-page graphic novel, printed in black and white with a color paperback cover, in an 8.5-inches-by-5.5-inches format.

The Big Bad Wolf: When is the release date?

Van Jensen: There's no specific date yet, but it'll come out in September. You can find it in the July issue of Diamond's Previews catalog (it's a Staff Pick), and the Diamond ordering number is JUL09 0644.

The Big Bad Wolf: How much is the book?

Van Jensen: Only $10.95. Dusty and I both wanted the book to be smaller format, black and white and cheap. Comics shouldn't be collector's items. They're meant to be read. So we wanted something that people could pick up without breaking the bank, then carry around in their pocket.

The Big Bad Wolf: Who’s the creative team on the book?

Van Jensen: Myself and Dustin Higgins (he also goes by Dusty), who is the creator and artist.

The Big Bad Wolf: Where can our readers find out more about Pinocchio Vampire Slayer?

Van Jensen: You can visit the publisher's Web site at http://www.slgcomic.com/, or go to Dusty's site at http://dustinhiggins.blogspot.com/ and you can read the first 10 pages of the book at my site, http://graphicfiction.wordpress.com/my-comics/.

The Big Bad Wolf: In closing, what would you like to say to our readers about Pinocchio Vampire Slayer?

Van Jensen: It's got vampires, action, humor, violence, genuine drama and a 3-foot-tall wooden puppet killing things with his nose. All for $10.95. You can't beat that with a stick.

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