So, when you grow a little older and begin high school did you already have a passion to be a comic book creator?
Brian Pulido: When I was in high school I knew that I was college bound, so I was doing all of the A.P. courses and I read comics, while making my own. I was reading things like Jim Starlin and Captain Marvel, I was attracted to things that were cosmic in storytelling. But I don’t think I had the idea of being a comic book creator. I think when I finally had the notion to go from fan and collector to creator it was a little later in life. I had gone to N.Y.U., graduated in ‘85, and immediately went to work in film production. I started out as a kid getting coffee and moved up to first assistant director. I had amassed a ton of production days, but I realized that this was not really an exciting thing for me at all.
At night I would be writing screenplays, and I completed the script for Evil Ernie, which was originally called Psycho Knight. And I was told by people that this was a bad title. I got the script to Evil Ernie to my friends who were producers of the movie Hellraiser. They wanted to make the movie, and I would have even gotten the chance to direct it. But they gave me a fee of forty thousand dollars, which at that time felt like a zillion. Also, I would have no ownership, so I thought about the idea of not having that and instead chose to bring Evil Ernie to life in a comic book. There was a path, where I was learning that I was unsatisfied and that creatively inside the context of the motion picture industry at that time, I couldn’t own what I created, so I took the comic route because I wanted to have my own creative ownership, and rights to creation and story.
I feel in one way we are kindred spirits, that being the way our passion for music has become not only our heart and soul, but also a conduit to our art and passion. When did your love of music begin?
Brian Pulido: I think my love of music and how it shapes my day can go as far back to when my sister was having her sweet sixteen birthday party in the sixties. Yeah, and on the back patios, and people started hearing about it, including local motorcycle clubs, it just became a thing. I distinctly heard The Doors song “Light My Fire,” and that became my connection to that summer. I just started grooving on music, even though it wasn’t really a part of my sister’s life, but I began equating certain songs to particular times. Hearing The Doors was very conscious, and I was also listening to .45’s of the The Beatles. I think another pinnacle moment was when watching Don Kirschner’s “Rock Concert,” and I was also also a fan of the teeny bopper stuff, I was enjoying The Partridge Family and whatnot as a kid. Still do, frankly. (Laughs)
But, at the time, I saw The Rolling Stones perform “It’s Only Rock and Roll, But I Like It” inside a giant bubble, and also equated that to a time in life. I was already a fan of rock and roll, but the next seismic event for me was in 1977, I was a skateboarder, not an exceptionally great one, but I was doing that while living with a family member in Ohio. I was hanging out with a bunch of dudes, you would call us mischievous, not necessarily bad, it was the seventies. I remember a girl screaming at me that I reminded her of a punk rocker from the U.K. I asked her what that was, and she had said that there was a special with bands that play this loud music that sucks and that I would probably like it. I went back to Jersey and I discovered punk rock through magazines, and I started buying things like Blondie, The Clash, The Dead Boys, and The Damned as they came out. I became super heavily akin to that because I felt like an outsider.
It was during the disco era, for better or for worse, and I wasn’t connected to any of that. When it comes to metal and rock, there was American rock was things like Aerosmith and Ted Nugent, but none of the real popular British stuff, so I really identified with punk. Even now, if there is a special concert out of state my buddies, Francisca, and I will go to it. I love having all of these wonderful musical affairs with bands, I have a ton of musical debates with friends, I just love what is going on with music. Like, the sad news of Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest having to leave the band due to Parkinson’s. I mean, that is just tragic.
So, here is a big question that I have been wanting to know since I could remember. Where did the idea of Lady Death and her world come from? Was that something that you always had in your mind, or were you inspired?
Brian Pulido: Well, I kind of have a creative approach that is called clustering, which is any sort of ideas that I love or am inspired by coming together. As you probably know, I created Evil Ernie first. Evil Ernie was a reflection of the time in ‘88 when there was an explosion of thrash metal and I was at a Megadeth concert. I looked around and I said, “Us”, and that kind of began the journey. Also, behind the man is a great woman, and that reason became the desire to be loved. I made Lady Death the version of what he would love, and that’s where she came from. That was really the beginning, and then after the first Evil Ernie series, there was a great demand and I created an origin.
As far as components of who she is, she was based on Vampira, the first female horror show host (played by genre icon Maila Nurmi). She had done a handful of episodes which were lost in time, and she always did a bunch of B movie fare including Plan 9 From Outer Space. It really was what she represented that I found incredible. She was not tethered to any man, called her own shots, and she was unearthly. She was absolutely beautiful, but also repelling to some people. I have always loved the pale skin look, and you see that in Elvira, Lily Munster, and Morticia Addams, but they were domesticated and mothers. Vampira stood alone, and that concept although subconscious knocked me out. The look was influenced by the time she was created, like the super big hair.
It’s funny, I’m working on a new story with an artist and I always have to give notes of big hair. (Laughs) I also want to take the idea of a pale rider to its ultimate expression.