David Pepose has been a bit of a fixture around thePullbox, seeming like he’s always taking a swing at the kind of comics I love to read. Starting with his debut original Spencer & Locke– a “what if?” look at Calvin & Hobbes all grown up and working a homicide beat, shaking things up with a heist caper and a fable about post-apocalyptic survival (Going to the Chapel and Scout’s Honor, respectively). More recently, he’s been adding higher profile feathers to his cap, writing for existing properties like Savage Avengers and Moon Knight (Marvel Comics), Speed Racer (Mad Cave Studios), & Space Ghost (Dynamite Entertainment).
Now David Pepose is going back to his notes and looking to wrap up a series he started but never got to finish. Enter… the Occupied Zone.
Written by David Pepose and illustrated by Ruben Rojas, The O.Z. follows Dorothy Gale, a disillusioned Iraq War veteran and the granddaughter of the Kansas farmgirl who killed the Wicked Witch of the West. But when a tornado strands Dorothy the younger in the war-torn land of Oz, she must confront her past and navigate her grandmother’s former friends if she hopes to survive the horrors of the Occupied Zone… or as the locals call it, The O.Z.
The story cleared the first two issues with flying colors on Kickstarter (issue 1 snagged a Ringo Award), but the third and final installment faced its own series of twisters and flying monkeys. Now… finally… readers old and new will be able to put the pin in this one as Pepose gets ready to call a cease fire to the ongoing battle that has been getting issue 3 out into the world. And now we’re gonna talk about it with the comicbook writer who never met a character archetype he couldn’t spin… Read on for thePullbox interview with David Pepose.
So, aside from touching base here and there, it has been a minute since we’ve “conversed” (full disclosure, this interview is being conducted by email because I’m lazy and would have zero idea how to post a zoom call). I interviewed you once back in February of 2019 for Spencer & Locke II, and my buddy Andy grilled you for the first issue of The O.Z. in August of 2020.
Now, here we are coming back for another bite at the ol’ apple, and I’m pretty excited. I wasn’t sure if The O.Z. was going to be wrapped up, or if it was going be on the perpetual back burner. It’s not like you haven’t been busy… which we’ll get back around to later.
First, for any readers who might’ve missed your early work on The O.Z., give us the “elevator pitch”. What is this story?
David: Sure! For those who missed out on our previous two campaigns, The O.Z. is like Mad Max meets The Wizard of Oz — it’s the story of Dorothy Gale’s granddaughter, an Iraq War veteran grappling with disillusionment and PTSD. But when she’s caught in a tornado that strikes just outside of her grandmother’s farm, our new Dorothy wakes up to find herself stranded in the war-torn land of Oz.
As Dorothy discovers, not only were Grandma’s stories all real, but they came at a harrowing cost — killing two Wicked Witches and exposing the Wizard of Oz didn’t lead to a happy ending, but instead a Baghdad-like power vacuum that has plunged Oz into a brutal civil war. The land of Oz is now known as the Occupied Zone… or as the locals call it, The O.Z.
Now forced to navigate a strange but tragically familiar new world, Dorothy must team up with her grandmother’s former friends — the Tin Soldier, the Prince of Lions, and Jack Pumpkinhead — to find the all-powerful Silver Slippers before they’re used against our world by Oz’s iron-fisted tyrant, the Scarecrow.
Unfortunately, as we last left our heroes, Dorothy’s quest has gone a little sideways, as she’s been captured by the Scarecrow’s forces — even as one of the Silver Slippers has magically latched itself to Dorothy’s foot. Which will pit Dorothy against the Scarecrow in a true battle of wills — can Dorothy hold out long enough to escape the Scarecrow’s dungeons, or will he force her to give up the Slipper once and for all?
You’ve got a history of twisting tropes until they cried (it was Andy, in fact, who dubbed you “TropeKiller”). The O.Z. is no different as you turn the focus to Original Dorothy Gale’s granddaughter of the same name, and set her up as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. One thing I can appreciate as a veteran is that Dorothy has obvious struggles that she has to deal with. PTSD is a feature of her as a character, but it doesn’t define her, and you don’t present her as totally broken and on the edge of a full meltdown. Did you consider the tightrope you had to walk there, avoiding going too far into the stereotype of the war-damaged veteran?
David: Absolutely. Dorothy’s military background was something I really took into consideration, because that’s something I didn’t want to take lightly — if you’re going to write a book like this, particularly dealing with themes of PTSD, you want to do the characters justice.
A lot of the background for this book came from my time as a newspaper reporter in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where one of my beats was the local military beat — so I wound up interviewing a lot of returning veterans, and talking with them about their own mental health struggles like PTSD and traumatic brain injury, as well as the challenges of reintegrating into civilian life.
Ultimately, my goal for my books in general — all the way back to Spencer & Locke, which was another book deeply rooted with themes of mental health — is to portray my characters with as much emotion and compassion as I can, and then give them a path to climb towards hope. I think that’s the sort of character arc that everyone can relate to, because everyone has pain in their past. My goal in writing someone like Dorothy is to hopefully give others an outlet to know they’re not alone, and that there’s a way forward.
Without going too far into spoilers, can you give a little insight into how you get from where the story was left to where you pick things up a couple of years later? And was there some catalyst that drove you back to this one, or has it always been there in the back of your mind… just waiting to pounce like a flying monkey?
David: I can break that down into two distinct answers, in terms of the story elements and the production elements.
Story-wise, we’re going to pick up right back where we left Dorothy, which is that she and her crew are trapped in the dungeons of the Nome King, who we learn has cut a deal with the Scarecrow. The fires of the Nome King’s forge are so hot, they can burn all the way down to your darkest secrets — which is a theme that we’ll be exploring quite a bit in this third issue. There are some big twists coming that will turn this entire series on its ear, and will really test Dorothy’s resolve as she embarks on her last big make-or-break offensive to stop the Scarecrow’s war machine from reaching our world.
As far as why return to The O.Z. now? Honestly, I’ve considered this third Kickstarter to be some of my great unfinished business, alongside Spencer & Locke 3. To give you a sense of the production timing, I actually wrote this series concurrently with Scout’s Honor (2021) — we’ve been working on this third Kickstarter since the end of the last Kickstarter, it’s just been a matter of getting the artwork locked in.
It’s easy to forget in an industry of company-funded monthly comics that artists are still human beings, and life happens to them — our incredible artist Ruben Rojas has gotten married, had a child, and was living in Spain during the worst of Covid. It’d have been very easy for him to cut and run on us, but he showed an incredible amount of commitment chipping away through pages without sacrificing any level of quality. The great thing about Kickstarter is that readers aren’t expecting a monthly turnaround, and I felt it was important to our readership to maintain that same level of consistency across the entire series — but that’s why it required more time to get there.
There were certainly other considerations as well — sometimes it was external events like not wanting to launch during the Kickstarter strike last year, sometimes it was trying to find a clean window where I didn’t have any announcements coming from my other publishers that would cannibalize The O.Z.’s spotlight. But ultimately, the big consideration behind wanting until now was to make sure the book was 100% finished and ready to be sent to the printer before we launched the Kickstarter — our readers have waited long enough, and we’re working with the amazing fulfillment team at Laguna Studios to ensure our backers will get their rewards VERY quickly.
Do you have a planned ending to this story, and how many instalments could readers be looking forward to?
David: This Kickstarter actually will be our third and final campaign for The O.Z.! So if you missed out on the previous Kickstarters, we’ll have catchup tiers where you can buy all three issues either in print, digitally, or in collector bundles featuring all of our previous variant covers. All three issues of The O.Z. ran doublesized, so our story runs the length of a standard six-issue miniseries — it’s a similar length to my horror book The Devil That Wears My Face (Mad Cave Studios). But never say never about doing more someday — I’ve already got a few other concepts of stories that could be told in the world of The O.Z., and working with Ruben Rojas is always a treat!
Now… and I must point out that you did leave this particular door open a crack for me in our earlier emails… I’m gonna talk just a bit about some of your other ongoing titles. You are currently involved in some very much-loved pieces of my childhood, writing Speed Racer for Mad Cave Studios and Space Ghost for Dynamite Entertainment.
It might be said that working with established properties like these might inhibit your trope-bending tendencies. While I do think that might be a little truer with Speed Racer, I think what you’re doing with Space Ghost is arguably still in that wheelhouse as you’ve infused a Saturday morning staple of very little true backstory with a touch of gritty detective noir. Was that what you were going for, to at least some extent? And how long do you think you can keep it up?
David: Yeah! Because we’ve structured Space Ghost as primarily done-in-one and done-in-two stories, that’s really had me stretching my genre mash-up muscles, because you want to make sure that every story has its own unique tone and vibe!
I’ve drawn from everything from Charles Manson as the inspiration behind Zorak, to heist movies for our first adventure with the Widow, even the first Terminator movie with Tarko the Terrible’s police station attack. You can even see DNA from J. Michael Straczynski and Dan Slott’s Spider-Man runs — as well as Days of Future Past! — in our latest Space Ghost storyline with Tempus the Time-Master. Space Ghost is such a fun character because his concept lends itself to so much versatility and malleability in terms of the stories he can organically work within. Because there wasn’t a ton of backstory to him in his original ‘60s cartoon run, there’s a lot of new things we’re able to do with Space Ghost that all feel consistent.
Another sidebar we have to talk about, just a little bit, is this thing I’ve heard about in the wind… Do you and the folks at Dynamite have a crossover planned for some of the Hanna-Barbera comics?
David: You’ll get to see a tease of what we’ve got planned in the upcoming Space Ghost Annual in July, that’s available for preorder at your local comics shop now — but Space Ghost’s universe is about to get a whole lot bigger, as he’s going to have his first meeting with the Herculoids!
This is a team-up I’ve been excited about for ages — Space Ghost and the Herculoids would often partner up in the Space Stars revival of the ‘80s, and given the found family story at the heart of me and Jonathan Lau’s series, it made sense to have Space Ghost, Jan, Jace, and Blip meet another family that came from a very different place.
For those who don’t know who the Herculoids are, it’s like if Conan the Barbarian lived in space, married Shanna the She-Devil and had a baby, and defended a jungle planet from pirates with the help of five interstellar kaiju — the star-dragon Zok, the armored steed Tundro, the rock-ape Igoo, and the protoplasms Gloop and Gleep.
There are certain overlaps between the two groups — particularly that Space Ghost and the interstellar barbarian Zandor are both used to being the toughest guys in the room — but there’s also some very key differences that will cause some sparks to fly. Similar to Space Ghost and Speed Racer before them, I watched every episode of The Herculoids to build upon the amazing story that Tom Sniegowski did with his 10-issue run on The Herculoids, so you’ll learn a bit about Zandor and his wife Tara’s backstory, which will put them toe-to-toe with Space Ghost and company.
Okay, David… as we get ready to put this little piece to bed, I’d like to hit you with a “What If…?” With a big ol’ blank check and the freedom to run in whatever direction suits you, which existing character or universe do you think is custom-fitted to your particular set of skills? What’s out there that you think you’d love to get your hands on?
David: Don’t make me choose! There’s so many characters I’d love to tackle. For DC, I’m a big fan of Billy Batson — I’d write 100 issues with him if they’d let me. The Suicide Squad could also be fun. Same with the Flash or Superman. And I’d be crazy if I ever turned down a chance at writing Batman or the Justice League, y’know?
On the Marvel side of things, I wrote one story with Spider-Man, but I’d love to take a big Krakoa-style swing at his universe someday. Wolverine is the one big Marvel character that I’ve never written, that I’d love to tackle at least once in my career. Doctor Strange is another one I’d love to do a long run on — I’ve had a pitch in my back pocket for him for the last decade-plus. I have a crazy Force Works pitch that I almost got off the ground under a different title. And I’d love to do a year someday on an off-the-beaten-path crime book, like Carnage or Vengeance.
But there’s so many others. What I wouldn’t do to take a crack at TMNT someday. Power Rangers is another one. James Bond. I have a Transformers idea that I don’t think has ever been done anywhere before, and it’s been burning a hole in my pocket since the moment I first came up with it. All I’ll say is that I came really close to landing one of these awhile back, so maybe one day one of these will happen.
And now let’s bring it back around to the world that is and what could be. As you’re heading back into one of your original stories with The O.Z., what other titles in your rearview mirror would you like to dust off and take for a spin? Do you have another story that calls out to you when the night is quiet and still?
David: Spencer & Locke 3, without a doubt. Like The O.Z., I consider that book the great unfinished business of my career. It’s taken far too long to extricate this book out of the clutches of my delinquent former publisher, but I think we’re finally close to seeing light on the other side of the tunnel.
I’ve got a really fun concept for S&L3 for me and Jorge Santiago, Jr. to close out that series, but I’m also very curious to revisit that series as a more seasoned writer, and as a human being who’s had a lot of growing up to do along the way. Thankfully, the core concept behind this third volume actually does include a timejump, so the next time we see Detective Locke, he’s going to have had a lot of time to think about things…
Speaking as a fan, Mr. Pepose, I want to thank you for always being classy and open to chat. As a very small outlet for indie press comics, you always having time for ThePullbox speaks volumes. Hopefully, we can send some eyeballs in your direction and keep you writing.
Stay nerdy, David!
David: Thank you so much for the questions! And for anyone interested in backing The O.Z., you can visit tinyurl.com/TheOZComic today — we’ll have print and digital catchup tiers if you missed our previous issues. Every backer counts, and we’re gonna get everyone’s rewards in their hands very quickly after the campaign ends — I promise this giant-sized finale will be worth the wait!
To whet your whistle, here are some pages from The O.Z., issues 1 & 2…
