Creator David López recently launched BlackHand & IronHead Vol. 2 via Panel Syndicate, continuing his story about generational superheroes.

And today, The Beat has a conversation with López about the book, a synopsis of which reads as follows: “Alexia and Amy, one a heroine, the other a supervillain, meet at their father’s funeral. They inherit THE FOUNDATION, which keeps the unstable superheroic universe under control. Together they end up destroying it when they discover that it’s a cover for lies and corruption. But, along the way, they have aired too much dirty laundry, and they are now the one’s being persecuted. Although they should be at each other’s throats, they only have on another. Have they really made the right decision?”

Check out our chat below!

INTERVIEW: David López talks BlackHand & IronHead Vol. 2

ZACK QUAINTANCE: So, between the first U.S. print edition last year and the new volume this year, it feels like BlackHand & IronHead has really done well as of late. How has it been for you as the book’s creator? Have you felt the audience expanding?

DAVID LÓPEZ: As a creator this has been quite an experience. I was used to dedicating myself only to drawing, nothing else. Now I write, draw, edit, letter and coordinate the whole book—I do it all! The experience is very rewarding because I learn a lot, but in terms of sleep, that’s a bit questionable (haha).

The kind of audience I have with BlackHand & IronHead is different from the one I have with my Marvel comics, they are less obviously mine, and are not characters with as much baggage as those of the House of Ideas. Yet I have found them very involved and received much fan art and showing of support. Using the “pay what you want” system generates a very nice return on engagement.

 

ZACK: What can you tell us about the second volume, which starts this week? The preview I read felt very timely…

DAVID: The story continues after the events of the first book in which the sisters met and destroyed their father’s corrupt Foundation. From here on, they have to deal with the consequences of their heroic acts from those who treat them as if they are villains.

I wrote the script for the six issues last summer in the midst of all the global turmoil, still in shock at the point of mass hysteria we reached in western societies, because of the media we consume. We were no longer able to come to an amicable consensus of what reality was when the world was turned upside down, or so it seemed. All of that slipped into the script and has now began to make sense.

ZACK: It felt like you were having fun with a new dynamic between the characters too. Was there anything in particular that motivated the change, creatively? 

DAVID: The relationship between the sisters changes over time—that’s in the core of the whole book. In the beginning, they just met and had no dynamic of their own. In BlackHand & IronHead Volume 2, their relationship has settled, but they still have a long way to go in terms of being sisters. As heroines, they also have opposite visions of what it means to “do good”. One wants to do good from within the system, the other wants to destroy the system to do good. Both are heroic, and the key for someone to be a hero, as the “good” of the D&D alignment table (Alexia is lawful good, Amy is chaotic good).

David López

ZACK: What can you tell us about the scope of this second volume? It feels like there’s quite a bit of room for interesting places to take it…

DAVID: We are going to have much more conflict than in the first volume, and it is going to be much more physical. Destroying the Foundation has really pissed off a lot of people and nothing is going to save them from these consequences—not even being IronHead’s daughters.

I’ve always been interested in exploring what a world with superheroes would be like using the logic of our reality: I think it wouldn’t be particularly different, the super-powered would be like the super-rich, people whose will drive the world, we puny mortals are at the expense of them wanting to do good.

ZACK: Finally, if you were tasked with working within a superpowered corporate empire…what sort of job would you have?

I would work in intelligence. Dealing with secrets and controlling information I think is the coolest part, you don’t need to beat up on anyone, beating up on people must be very tiring, right?