Lana On What to Expect From New Comic Book Dark Country, Which Comics She’s Reading

– Lana spoke with comics site Newsarama for a new interview discussing her and Rusev’s new comic book with Jason Starr, Dark Country. Highlights are below:

On balancing her WWE work with producing the comic book: “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.”

On what comics she’s currently a fan of: “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.”

On teaming with Jason Starr for Dark Country: “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.”

On what to expect from the comic book: “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.”

On if there are plans for an expansion of the comic’s world: “Yes, absolutely. I mean that was the biggest thing that we did. You know, we were talking, before we even mapped out what was going to happen in the first comic book, we wanted to create the world. I think the most important thing is, when you’re doing comics, or writing anything, a thriller or just anything that has its own franchise – what is the world? What is the setting that they live in? And also what are they fighting for? What is in these characters? What are they fighting for? I think that’s a question that is very, very, very vital. And as human beings, that’s what people are going to relate to, is like, what are you fighting for? Because in life, at the end of the day, that’s what drives us, is what are we fighting for? And it’s at all different, it’s at different levels, and different scales, but how what we’ve been through, and our past, and what we fight for can manifest in so many different types of ways. And sometimes you can, you know, have been through whole bunch of stuff and become so obsessed with something that you’re fighting for, or even do really, really bad things, because of… even if the idea of what you’re fighting for is good. So a lot of that, we really, really talked a lot about that and explored that, because I think that’s essential to creating a compelling comic.”

On when the book will be available: “Well, May 15, we announce the artist who is going to be working with us, and then we’re going to start collaborating with the art. Jason Starr is very well into actually already writing the comic, and then it’s just working with the artist! And then we’ll continue to show the journey, and give you spoilers, and give you — bring the comic world and our fans and followers along the journey. And so I can’t give you an exact date right now, but that’s why, like, follow us on Instagram at TheLanaWWE, and RusevIG, and we’ll keep you posted on all the dates that things are coming out.”