Shortly before the release of its first issue, writer and illustrator Zoe Thorogood took the time to answer some questions about “Hack/Slash: Back to School,” the latest installment in the “Hack/Slash” saga of slasher-basher Cassandra “Cassie” Hack. Thereafter, series creator Tim Seeley gave his own thoughts on the new installment and let us in on what is to come down the line.
How would you describe this miniseries, for people who are unfamiliar with the saga at large?
Zoe Thorogood: “Hack/Slash” is a franchise that follows this girl called Cassie who is a final girl – like horror movie style final girl – who takes the fight back to the slashers and hunts slashers. And ‘Back to School’ is kind of a Year Zero of her story. Tim [Seeley] wanted this kind of jump on point for new readers, and I wanted something that could appeal to “Hack/Slash” fans, and fans of mine that maybe aren’t interested in “Hack/Slash.” I would say that it’s… definitely a slight departure from the usual series. Like, it has a lot of the same – it’s very brutal, it’s very gory, it’s a little pervy – but I think it has the Zoe Thorogood bullshit added to it.
You say that it’s a good jumping-on point. Is there anything that readers should look into first, or is this itself enough to understand? There’s also a series that he [Tim Seeley]’s had like ‘My First Maniac,’ there’s the original ‘Euthanized’ story, for Vlad there was ‘Me Without You.’ Is there anything people should look into at all, or is this just a general good jumping-on point for anybody?
ZT: I think that people should generally read “Hack/Slash.” I mean, “Hack/Slash” is so much fun. They’ve got omnibus editions I would recommend checking out. Also, so much of it feels like standalone stories as is. You can kind of just read it without knowing much context. I have tried with the issue 1 of ‘Back to School.’ It catches you up on what you need to know, although… it takes place just after ‘My First Maniac.’ So reading that one will give you context, but I’ve tried to put that context very quickly in the first issue. But if you need more of an extended context before reading it, yeah, check out ‘My First Maniac.’
How would you compare this to your other work, like “It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth,” “The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott,” and the rest?
ZT: So, on the surface, I think it looks very different, but I think that my work will always be using the same themes. Like in this book, Cassie is… she hasn’t become what she is in the general series yet. Like in the story, her mom becomes a slasher, she has to kill her own mom, and she’s in foster care, she leaves foster care, and becomes this slasher hunter. But my story takes place just as she leaves foster care, and is kind of at that confused point. Like, “I don’t have a home,” like eighteen to twenty years old, has that kind of general young adult confusion, and also is carrying all of this trauma with her. Tonally, it’s really hard to explain, but it like has so many of the same themes of just not knowing what you’re doing, just young adult kind of usual bullshit, but also violence and gore and horrible stuff on top of it.
So, basically a standard day for Cassie.
ZT: Yeah, basically.
Solicitations seem to indicate that ‘Back to School’ is early in her partnership with Vlad. How do you think this influences their relationship which is more commonly seen as best friends? Aside from when she tried to kill him when she first met him?
ZT: Yeah, so this takes place – the story starts the day after she tries to kill him. So there’s this – So Vlad, for people who don’t know, Vlad is Cassie’s sidekick. He’s this giant guy who she mistakes for a slasher at first. And so there’s immediately, you know, kind of distrust ’cause Cassie is, you know, quite a paranoid person, and I wanted to explore kind of their early relationship. So it’s definitely a different relationship to what you’re used to, but I’d like to fill in the gap how they became so close after, you know, such a disastrous first encounter.
Continued belowOn a related note, in general, Cassie is… let’s just say less than enthusiastic about teaming up with other people, especially early in her career, and preferring to keep them at a distance. On top of that, as far as we know, she did not even really go back to school at all after she dropped out, aside from being undercover, after what happened with her mom. Can you tell us anything about how and why she would go back to school at all, especially this early in her history?
ZT: So… a lot of this is spoilers, so I can’t go too much into depth.
As much as you can without spoilers.
ZT: It’s not a standard school. It’s a school for monster hunters. And she’s at this point, very early on in issue one, she’s at this point of confusion. She meets this headmistress of this school, who is a slasher hunter herself, and she’s very, you know, no bullshit. She has a chainsaw, she’s like this older woman who ends up – very mild spoilers for issue one – she ends up saving Cassie’s life, so Cassie’s already in debt to this woman, as she’s confused. This woman has this school for like, for people who are like Cassie. And I wanted to give Cassie this environment where she’s put into this place where she’s not special. She’s in this school with all of these other girls who all are basically final girls who’ve escaped slashers before. There are girls in that school who are more equipped than her. She’s not the best at, you know, hunting. She’s not the moodiest. She’s not the most goth girl there. Just that image. I wanted to put her in a place where she’s almost normal, and see what happens to that character when you put her in that place.
There have been at least two other times when, as I said, she went undercover in a school, including the ‘Tub Club’ arc back in the early issues of the first ongoing. How would you say ‘Back to School’ is different from the stories before it, be it with Seeley or one of the others?
ZT: I would say this one is different because she’s not undercover. She’s really being herself. A lot of “Hack/Slash” is her feeling out of place, is her feeling like an outsider in all of these environments. Like people don’t understand her, or why she is the way she is. But ‘Back to School’ puts her in – yeah, like I said, puts her in this environment where she is normal. Because everyone is like her. And the girls in that school, most have had more traumatic and more fucked up pasts than she had. And so it opens up this new world for the series, I would say.
There have been a lot of famous final girls. Did you base any of the other students on any from other media? Without spoiling, of course.
ZT: I don’t think so, but they do play into tropes. I wanted to have each of the other main girl characters play into a trope but also try and break it apart a little bit. But they’re not based on any specific characters. But yeah, definitely the horror movie tropes of like the dumb blonde and the stoner and like the cool goth girl. That’s like what their characters are, but they’re obviously… I would like to think a little more complex. But that’s my jumping on point.
Since there are a lot of final girls in media – there’s a term for it, of course – in a story that seemingly has several of them working together, how do you make each of them unique. According to Image Comics, they seem to have similar traumas and reactions to them, so how do you keep them from just being other Cassies?
ZT: I think that, with me at least, I base my characters off people I know a lot of the time, and all of these girls at the school, they have different… Some of them aren’t there because of slashers. They’re there because they had a monstrous family member or somebody. Somebody who wasn’t a slasher or anybody, but someone who equipped them with these kinds of traumas and these kinds of… Equipped them so they would be comfortable in this environment. I mean, I went to an all-girls high school, so like a lot of this is kind of… With that school, with Cassie, is all of these final girls and… I know what girls are like. I went to an all-girls high school. I love female characters. I love writing diverse, and like, crazy bitches, and I feel like there’s so much range of crazy bitch, you know?
Continued belowI mean, I can’t say that. You can.
ZT: I can! There are so many crazy bitches in this world, and I love them all!
Is there anything in particular that drew you to “Hack/Slash?” Because there’s been a lot, and I think you’re one of the first who has done the complete piece of a series, from illustration to writing to all of it.
ZT: So it came at a really good point. Tim contacted me at a really good point. I had just finished with “It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth,” which for those who don’t know it’s an autobio book. It was very personal, and it took a lot out of me to make. And so Tim wanted me on “Hack/Slash,” was like cool, I get to do this violent, gory, fun book that’s just so different from what I did last. And it just came at this perfect point where it’s just such a palate cleanser, and I was so “don’t want to get stuck doing one thing.” And it just felt so varied from what I’d done previously.
Sounds like you’re a fan of it anyway.
ZT: Yeah, I love it, it’s great.
And last, is there anything else we should know about “Hack/Slash: Back to School?”
ZT: That you should buy it when it comes out next week. The 18th of October!
Now we have Tim Seeley, one of the original creators of “Hack/Slash” itself. Did you have input on choosing Zoe Thorogood to do this project?
Tim Seeley: Yeah, Zoe and I have the same art dealer, Cadence [Comic Art]. Paolo Belfiore mentioned that Zoe had asked him about “Hack/Slash,” and he was like, “Do you want her to do ‘Hack/Slash?'” And I was like, “Yeah, please, absolutely.” I said, “Do whatever you want.” So I told her, for it she could do whatever the Hell she wanted, and I can’t believe she did it, because she’s a big star. But I feel like we have this sort of generation of creators now who did grow up on reading “Hack/Slash” and stuff, which I have to like accept as a great, true reality that I’m lucky to have. So like, she read it when she was younger, and now she’s bringing her own vibe to it.
What about her work do you think makes her such a good fit for this?
TS: I mean, if you read “It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth,” it’s about, like, being depressed and depression, and she, as a character in that book, is very much like Cassie, actually. Besides, obviously, the slashers and monsters and stuff. But she loves also horror, she loves monster stuff, and she comes from a generation who’re… I guess much more honest about their anxieties and fears. And she’s also closer to Cassie in gender and age than I am, so I felt she would bring something honest to it.
Yeah. And as a last thing, this series looks great, but aside from that, do you have any idea on what you have in the future for Cassie Hack, especially after the ‘Kill Your Idols’ crossover [from the “Image!” anniversary anthology] and all that came out of that?
TS: Yes, absolutely. So ‘Kill Your Idols’ will get a release as a full book together, as a one-shot. We’re gonna do that in March, and then this summer we have a new “Hack/Slash” series. I can’t tell you what it is yet, but it’ll be myself and Stefano Caselli teaming up again – the original artist for the first book. So we’re doing a new thing, probably about July or August.
“Hack/Slash: Back to School” is available wherever comic books are sold. The first issue comes out on October 18, with subsequent issues releasing monthly, to a total of four installments.
