WWE star Lana was recently interviewed by NewsaRama to talk about she and Rusev’s upcoming comic book “Dark Country.” The couple are working with comic book author Jason Starr on the project. Check out some of the highlights here:
Newsarama:
C.J., you’re so incredibly busy, touring all the time for WWE. What’s it like juggling that kind of schedule and working to bring a new comic book into the world?
C.J. “Lana” Perry:
Oh, sometimes it gets really, really, really crazy and I get a little overwhelmed. But I feel like I love the adrenaline rush of being a little overwhelmed. And at the end of the day, I just love, love, love, love telling stories. Since I was a little girl, it was my dream to be a storyteller, and to do stories — good versus evil, and, you know, put smiles on people’s faces.
I was always a comic book fan, since I was a very little girl, watching Batman and Lois and Clark. I was obsessed with them, that show on TV. And I just always wanted to create a comic book. Creating these larger than life characters that are villains, and good guys, overcoming obstacles, and creating characters that are complex. And as human beings, we’re complex, and we have a lot of different layers to us. So this has always been a very, very big passion of mine, creating a comic book, and I’m glad, I’m so thankful I’m able to do it right now.
Nrama:
Being such a big fan of comic books, what are you reading — when you have the time, what are you reading these days?
Perry:
I’ve been reading The Punisher. I absolutely love The Punisher. I carry one, a new comic every single — every time it comes out. That’s what I actually carry in my bookbag. I’ve got a great comic book store about a mile away from my house in Nashville, so I hit up that place every Wednesday.
Nrama:
You’re working with Jason Starr, somebody who’s written the Punisher before. How did you manage to link up with him? And how did you know that he was going to be the right fit for Dark Country?
Perry:
I’ve always been a big fan of Jason Starr’s work with a lot of other things he’s written as well. He also does write novels. I also love that – comics, and superheroes, and supervillains that he writes, he also does a lot of stuff in fantasy novels and stuff with werewolves.
I just love fantasy, I love anything to do with sci-fi, and he does a lot of that stuff, and I just felt like … I was already reading a lot of his stuff, so I was already a fan of him, and when the opportunity came to meet we just really, really hit it off and really connected, and I really felt like it was a right fit. We also had a very great idea to create something, and we just felt like the time was right, and I really think that this will be one of many that we do.
Nrama:
In the announcement video, you mention that you weren’t really sharing a lot of details yet about Dark Country, but can you give us a little teaser? I know that Jason is known for, like you said, his fantasy work, his thriller work, his work on The Punisher. Is that a little bit of insight into what we can expect to see in Dark Country?
Perry:
Yes, I don’t want to give too much away, but we’ve actually already created the story, we’ve already created the characters and the names. But it’s definitely going to be something that you’ve never seen or read before. I always find it really fascinating that you never see vampires and werewolves in the world of superheroes, you know? It’s always separate.
You always have either, you know, shadowhunters and werewolves and vampires and demons and angels, but you don’t have all of a sudden someone from X-Men coming in, and having someone, you know, just being gifted, and having a superpower. And I always find that really, really fascinating that those worlds are very separate.
And yes, the sci-fi world or gods might come into Avengers – it’s such a combination of all the worlds and Marvel coming together, but still you never see that combination of vampires coming into the comic book. Not comic book, but the superpowers, with gifted human beings that are muted together.
And so I’m not – that’s about all I’m going to give of a little bit of a teaser of what’s going to be happening in the comic books, but it’s going to be something that has never been done before.
