We spoke with Rich Stahnke about the project.

Wolfen: Can you tell us a little something about When Drive-Ins Attack?

Rich Stahnke: My main project right now is a large anthology entitled "When Drive-Ins Attack". Working on that has been my focus for several months now. In addition to that, I'm slowly getting work done on a one-shot comic called "Poisonberry". I'm always thinking of storylines for my Drunken Monkey series too.

Wolfen: What is the inspiration for "The Pack"?

Rich Stahnke: I wanted to come up with a story that fit the theme I had set up, so I knew I needed to incorporate some of my own guidelines. There had to be action and blood etc. I also wanted there to be a bit of horror movie cliché involved as well. I've got the run down farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere that my heroine finds herself stranded in, while danger lurks outside. That's reminiscent of "Night of the Living Dead" and others like "Cujo" with Dee Wallace stuck in her Pinto outside the farmhouse. I was thinking of B-movies and I remembered a movie about killer dogs I had seen back in the early 80's called "Rottweiler". I don't remember the plot to it but the coolest thing was that it was in 3D!

Wolfen: Who is your artist for the "Pack"? What other writers and artists are involved in the anthology?

Rich Stahnke: I'm handling my own art chores on the story. I've got several other writers kicking in stories. I've Dan Wickline, whose written several projects for IDW including some of the 30 Days of Night books. Jason Pell, writer of
the "Zombie Highway" series sent me the one story that actually features a drive-in.

The first story I received was from Dwight "Dead Men Tell No Tales" MacPherson. I'm looking at about 12 different contributing writers right now. I'm still working on matching up artists for some of the stories, so I don't want to name all names until I'm completely sure they'll be featured. All of the writers are previously published though and I hope to get a story in from one writer who comics fans will definitely be familiar with.

The artist line up doesn't feature any names that will be instantly recognizable to most comics fans. I've been working to keep the quality level up but I've still found some "unknown" artists with a lot of talent.

Also, some of the artists might not be known to comic fans but they work professionally in other fields. One of the contributing writers, Jeremy Bear, is also handling his own art. Jeremy has been published in one of the
24 hour comic collections but his name isn't going to be recognized by the average fan. Jeremy has worked as a professional artist for several years though.

Wolfen: When are your projects going to be available for the masses?

Rich Stahnke: When Drive-Ins Attack will hopefully be on store shelves by the fall of 2008 and in time for Halloween. Not all of the stories fit the horror genre, but most of them do. I'm hoping to wrap up the bulk of my Drive-In work this winter so I can get the "Poisonberry" one shot ready in time for the summer convention season. After that, I'll be working on some more Drunken Monkey stuff.


Wolfen: What is on the horizon for your "Drunken Monkey" material?

Rich Stahnke: I'll be trying hard to get some new Monkey material into print in 2008. I don't want people to forget about the book and the characters. I've been wanting to do a Christmas special and the timing might be right for that in 2008.

I just got the Drunken Monkey books hooked up with the online service Wowio. Users register for free with Wowio and then they can downloadcomics and traditional books for free as an Adobe PDF file. So, anyone reading this
who might be unfamiliar with my "Furious Fist of the Drunken Monkey" comics can download and read all the issues for free now if they go to:

http://www.wowio.com/users/searchresults.asp?nPublisherId=116

Wolfen: Now for some personal questions, who inspired your writing when you were younger?

Rich Stahnke: I started out very young with comics. My parents would buy an issue or two for my brother and me when we'd go to the convenience stores. That was the day of the wire spinner rack that said "Hey kids! Comics!" at the top. I remember always carrying a round a Marvel comic that reprinted some old western stories featuring the Two-Gun Kid. That was before I could actually read. I just followed the story based on the pictures.

One of my early favorites in comics was Chris Claremont. I got hooked on the Uncanny X-Men in the middle of the great Claremont/Byrne run on the book. John Byrne's writing on Fantastic Four was a favorite as well. The two writers who probably had the biggest impact on me though, were probably Frank Miller and Alan Moore. The first Miller comic I read is still one of my favorites. It was Daredevil #179. The issue introduced the Ben Urich character and killed him in the same issue. Apparently due to fan reaction, they brought him back saying he'd only been gravely wounded by one of Elektra's sais. I read that issue and was hooked on Miller and Daredevil.

I got exposed to Moore through Swamp Thing. I used to also pick up occasional issues of Warrior magazine at a used book store. Warrior was a magazine from England and Moore contributed several stories including the V for Vendetta stories and Marvelman/Miracleman.

I was an avid reader and I bought "Cujo" as my first Stephen King novel when I was about 13 years old. I devoured everything he'd written after that. When I bought it though, I had no idea who he was or that he'd written "Carrie" or anything else. I just saw the paperback on display and thought the cover looked cool and the blurbs on the cover made it sound like a cool book.

Wolfen: Who is your favorite horror character?

Rich Stahnke: I'm not really sure that I have one. I do have a real fondness for werewolves but that's in general and not one particular character. When it comes to movies, I tend to like "creature features" more than the serial
killer type stuff.

In comics, I like John Constantine and I'm a huge fan of "The Walking Dead" series.

Wolfen: Thank you for your time, Rich. Keep us posted on When Drive-Ins Attack.

Talk about the When Drive-Ins Attack Interview.