Home > COMICS > Q&A: TERMINAL PRESS OWNER BRIAN FERRARA
Q&A: TERMINAL PRESS OWNER BRIAN FERRARA
Comic publisher discusses Terminal's new line of books based on iconic adult film titles.
By Wade Million
Posted 7/09/2008
Under the guiding hand of comic publisher Terminal Press, Debbie does Dallas in a whole new way.
Terminal Press has recently unveiled an exclusive new line of comic books based on iconic adult film industry movie titles. But don't be fooled—these books aren't just remakes of their motion picture counter parts. From Debbie battling zombies in Texas to an elfish nurse in candy Stripers, every book is jam packed with an all-new original story, high quality art and just about every "cool thing" fan boys and girls could ask for in a single comic. Sure, you might see a bit more of the human anatomy than in your typical picture book, but the titles are the only thing pornographic about these bad boys.
Wizard was able to talk to Terminal Press owner Brian Ferrara about his unique approach to comic creation.
WIZARD UNIVERSE: So, comic books with famous pornographic movie titles…how'd you come up with that?
BRIAN FERRARA: [Laughs] After being starving comic artists for many years, we decided we were going to sell out. Anything we do around here we do it hard, so if we were going to sell out it was going to be all the way. So, we wanted to go for a Pokemon meets Brats tween girl Wal-Mart audience type of property. We crafted up this whole thing with images and sugar coating and just nauseatingly disgusting (for little girls). This is totally not our thing but we actually took time to work on it. It was called "Trend Friends." It's like Pokemon, but instead of battling with monsters they have different fashion accessories. The girls collect boots and earrings, but they have powers. [Laughs] I still think it's a good idea, but I don't want to touch it. I think it would do very well for someone who had the stomach to actually make it happen.
Anyway, we went to conventions to go pitch this idea around and go talk to people and see if we could come up with anything. After walking the show floor for a couple hours it was just so painful to all of us. We were just so not into what we had. We weren't into the kind of people we would have to work with to make something like that happen. The whole thing was just going downhill. The team was ready to bail, but as a good leader I forced them to walk the rest of the show floor with promises of beer and food if they complied with me.
So we're all drained and we get to the very last aisle and standing there like a beacon of hope in all its pornographic glory was Arrow Productions. They were handing out this "Deep Throat" energy drink. They called us over and we had some of these drinks and just started chatting. It turned out they were looking to do comics. The marketing director comes up to us and says, "Well, I don't know if you guys are up to doing this kind of material." So then I showed him some of our stuff. He opens up Silent Assassin and just goes "Whoah!" So if we could make the marketing director of a porno company stand back like that, I think it was safe to say we could handle his material.
How does Deep Throat energy drink taste anyway?
FERRARA: It's actually pretty good. After meeting these guys, we went to a week long porn convention in Vegas, and I spent the whole time chugging these drinks. Let me tell you, as far as conventions go, this turns the volume down on comic book conventions several notches.
I'll bet there's no Stormtroopers walking around
FERRARA: No there's not, but you do have a lot of boobs.
So what kind of "research" did you have to do for these books?
FERRARA: Research consisted of boxes and boxes of DVDs that these companies would ship to my apartment at the time. So I would be in the lobby of my apartment building where I would get this giant box full of porn DVDs. [Laughs] We had already decided which titles we were going to use. The iconic films are "Candy Stripers," "Deep Throat," "Debbie Does Dallas," "Johnny Wadd" and "Devil and Ms. Jones." Those are the only porn films I could even name unless you are stringing together profanities and numbers. So, yeah, I asked if they could send those because we did need the reference material for graphics and set pieces and such. But, the guy sent me like everything in his catalog. I said it wasn't really necessary, but he sent me a box anyway. So everybody on the team got the DVD for the book they were working on plus some stocking stuffers.
So how did you come up with ideas for stories?
FERRARA: Well, Debbie Does Dallas was like our test book. We came up with this crazy concept of having complete artistic license. We wanted to take these iconic brands and do whatever we wanted to with them. Once they agreed to this concept and said, "Ok, there's no boundaries," we just took Debbie and did whatever we wanted. At that point in time we were just in the mode of fulfilling adolescent fantasies. We had other cool ideas for books that we wanted to do, like robots and zombies. So we thought, what if we just take them all and mash them together and just have fun with the whole thing. I pitched the post-apocalyptic Debbie Does Dallas to Arrow and they thought we were nuts. But, they let us go with it.
How has the fan reaction been so far?
FERRARA: Debbie did really well. The adult industry really embraced it and the fans that picked it up have given really positive responses. I get more negative feedback from people who haven't read it or prejudged it before they even know what it's about. But even that's kind of fun to create something that right out of the gate people are going to be like, "Oh, well, this is stupid." [Laughs] Sometimes that's the first reaction you get. On the other side of it, there's people who go "Oh my god, they just jammed everything cool into one book! I totally want to check that out." With comic books, you get that from everybody.
The biggest critics are the hardcore fans. The people who really define themselves by the industry and the content that comes out. Those are the guys that just want to kick your ass the most on anything you say or do. I kind of knew that already, so I figured if we we're going to get in trouble no matter what we might as well just go with it. But I mean, it's kind of a little footnote in comic history doing a project like this. Ten years from now, some guy in the comic shop is going to be like, "Remember when that company took all those pornos and turned them into zombie stories and did a bunch of weird s--t?"
So what has your strategy been as far as getting these books out onto the market?
FERRARA: What we've been doing, which has really been working for us, is creating these books in limited editions. The first printing of each of these books is capped off at 200 issues. They go for a price point that is above average, but the demand outweighs the supply. This enables us to bypass the traditional comic channels. Print media in general has changed so much to where you can get things for free by downloading on the Internet or in PDF form. There's so much different content floating around out there. To do these big orders and then have to count on comic book shops to pick up something that may be too controversial—we may not get the reception we need to sustain them. So we've gone more of a high quality art route. We're giving more value to our print media. We put a ton of work into these and to cap it off at so few, they do go for a higher price point. Our other editions that we've done this way have sold out. Debbie was already being sold on eBay after the convention in January because you couldn't get it anywhere else besides at our con appearances and through direct order. So, yeah, we kind of just went a different route with this in trying to give some value to the print media. It's cool, it's high quality and it is a very limited run with limited accessibility. You can't walk into a comic shop and pick these up. Later on in the year there will be a collected edition where we are going to take all these books that were limited runs and put them into graphic novel format, including the second part to the Debbie Does Dallas story.
Can you talk a little bit about what will happen in part two?
FERRARA: The real question is: does she make it out alive or not? That's what that story is all about. It introduces a couple more characters and it will be a little bit longer because we will find out if the U.S. government decides to nuke the city or hold off for Debbie to get out. Don't forget, this is a post-apocalypse story, so things might end a little grim. Or not.
What about Candy Stripers?
FERRARA: Well, as far fetched as it may seem, this story is actually an allegory for the Holocaust. It touches on how the Nazis were able to justify going to work on a daily basis and performing these atrocities on their captives. It really is a story about how the Candy Striper (the doctor's assistant) was able to hurt her own people just because an authoritative figure commanded her to do so. As long as she was commanded to perform these actions, she was just doing her job and absolved of any responsibility. This leads back to the Milgram experiments they performed after World War II. Basically, they had a test subject and the guy conducting the experiment in one room. In another room they had another person the test subject could not see. The instructor would tell the person to press a button and upon doing so they would hear the person in the other room scream. As long as the instructor kept telling them to press the button, the test subject would keep pressing it even though they could obviously hear someone scream every time they did so. Even if they felt uncomfortable or questioned it, as long as someone in authoritative position told them to do it, they would. That's what this story is kind of about—blindly following authority. She follows orders all these years, hurting her own people, and the one true important thing she does in her life is abandon her obedience to the hierarchy and act out of her own will. This was really a hard story to pitch to them because it has nothing to do with "Candy Stripers." [Laughs]
But there is still a hot nurse in a revealing outfit.
FERRARA: Right, well, I did get in the hot nurse. Candy Stripers actually has the most nudity in it out of any of the books. I would say it is actually the most graphic out of all the books. The other part that did influence me in writing this story was right before I started writing it, my grandmother—who was a survivor of the Holocaust—had just passed away. I wouldn't say this is like a tribute or anything, but it definitely did influence me.
I'm sure she would be very proud.
FERRARA: [Laughs] Basically everything I am saying is kind of just a mish-mash of all of these different things. This is just how I do my books. The other guys on the creative team have a more precise method when they go about doing these things. The way I go about doing my work is kind of like a million things clumped into my brain at one time. It's like they get pushed out of that Play-Doh machine where you squeeze out those logs.
I used to have one of those! Not as tasty as they might look.
FERRARA: That log is like my comic log that comes out. It starts as all different colored Play-Doh and just comes out brown no matter what. [Laughs] I don't know if that's a good metaphor for how I make comics.
When are the rest of these titles going to be available to us common folk?
FERRARA: Well, Debbie Does Dallas is already out. Candy Stripers and Deep Throat debut at San Diego [Comic Con]. Devil and Ms. Jones and Johnny Wadd will be following the months leading into the fall. We're also talking to a couple companies about doing some toys based off these. Hopefully there's going to be a Debbie with zombie statue coming out and maybe a couple articulated ones. I really just want toys. [Laughs] It would be exciting to bring in toys from books I've created to my battles I do on the carpet when nobody is looking. I like to take out all the toys from the cabinet and have my own Secret Wars. They wouldn't even need to give them to me. I would be the first in line to buy them. I will totally support that from the retail side. I think other people would pick it up too. I mean a hot chick, zombies and a mech suit? Sounds like a formula for awesome to me.
