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MetalLife.com Interview With Joe Brusha & Ralph Tedesco (Zenescope)
By: Eva Jarkiewicz
Date: Oct, 2010

1. Metal Life Magazine: Five years ago the two of you decided to found Zenescope Entertainment and publish your own stories. Was there any consideration given to taking Grimm Fairy Tales to an established publisher rather than gambling on founding your own comic book label?

Joe Brusha: "No. The thought never crossed our mind. We were pretty uneducated about the way the comic book industry worked and the differences between the way companies published their books. We kind of had tunnel vision about what we were going to do which was both good and bad."

Ralph Tedesco: "It was a consideration but not something we seriously thought about doing. We wanted to publish our own titles and figured we'd just jump in with both feet."

2. Metal Life Magazine: We've heard that neither of you had any experience in the comic book industry before founding Zenescope. Did this present an additional challenge in finding artists that could grasp your vision for Grimm Fairy Tales? Did you already have artists in mind when you were first laying the foundation for Zenescope?

Joe Brusha: "It definitely presented problems. We had a hard time finding reliable artists early on and that lead to a lot of headaches. But we were able to find a couple of reliable studios early on and that really saved us."

Ralph Tedesco: "It was definitely a challenge not having the contacts and not knowing where to go initially. Certainly it was a learning process that we needed to pick up quickly."

3. Metal Life Magazine: For issue 50, Zenescope pulled together an all-star team of artists. Other labels have done this for special issues and ended up with a very discordant artistic product. How did you go about pulling this team together to deliver such an artistically cohesive issue?

Joe Brusha: "Ralph and Raven can answer that better than I can."

Ralph Tedesco: "I had worked with a lot of the artists beforehand on multiple projects and felt that we could put a nice team together and keep the consistency. We've done it before in some of our annual and double issues and we have a pretty good feel of which artists work well together. It's definitely tough to pull off but I have to thank all of the artists as well as the assistant editors and proof-readers for stepping up to the challenge. They really made the difference."

Read the Metal Life Review of Grimm Fairy Tales #50 HERE

4. Metal Life Magazine: There are some major changes that appear to be coming as a result of the events of issue 50. Characters making difficult decisions, and lives lost. What can you tell us of what is coming as a result of these difficult choices?

Joe Brusha: "The series is definitely evolving. We started out doing a lot of one shots with new characters appearing in almost every issue. Sela was the only constant but for the most part the stories weren't about her. Going forward you're going to see more multi issue story lines with that focus on the re-occurring characters including Sela. There will still be the occasional one-shot fairy tale story but that will be the exception rather than the norm."

5. Metal Life Magazine: The original Brothers Grimm tales weren't the warm fuzzy fairy tales that most children grow up with these days. When you first started working on Grimm did you look to deliver a product that was more in tune with the original feel of the Brothers Grimm?

Ralph Tedesco: "Definitely we did. We went back to the originals and reinvented and re-thought them with our own twists. But we wanted to certainly incorporate the creepiness that the original tales included."

Joe Brusha: "We really just wanted to take familiar stories and put our own unique twist on them. We knew the original Grimm Tales were kind of dark so that played into our thinking but we were also big fans of the Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt. We wanted to do a series that was similar in tone to those shows."

6. Metal Life Magazine: Zenescope has worked on licensed properties such as Seven and Final Destination from New Line Cinemas. Are there any plans for any other horror film licensed properties in Zenescope's future?

Joe Brusha: "Licensing is tricky. We've been very selective in going after licensed properties because we prefer to work on original projects that we can control. That being said we're always looking for properties that we think we can turn into cool and compelling books. "

Ralph Tedesco: "There are some things we're considering but can't yet talk about. Horror is always going to be a big part of what we do so we always explore all the options when it comes to that genre."

7. Metal Life Magazine: What are some of your interests and hobbies that you partake in (when you have free time that is)?

Joe Brusha: "I spend a lot of time doing things with my kids. Between that, writing and doing my part to run Zenescope I don't have much time to do anything else. I try to read as much as possible and take in a movie whenever I get the chance."

Ralph Tedesco: "I practice Japanese JuJitsu and I'm pretty much into working out regularly as much as possible whether that's weights or running… It keeps me sane."

8. Metal Life Magazine: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Ralph Tedesco: "Whether you're a Zenescope fan or not, thanks for supporting the comic book industry. It continues to evolve. It's great that comics are not all superheroes and spandex anymore because of the fans showing that they want more than that."

Joe Brusha: "I'd just like to thank all the fans that helped us get to the 50th issue of Grimm Fairy Tales. We're very proud of the achievement and we couldn't have done it without their incredible support. We hope they keep picking up our books and we're really excited to be releasing another new on-going series early next year, Grimm Myth's & Legends. We hope they give it the same support they've given our other Grimm series. "

Find out more about Zenescope here.