After being teased in the back of the first issue of Radiant Black a new Tokusatsu inspired super hero comic has hit Kickstarter; Inferno Girl Red.
Penned by Mat Groom, one of the writers on Marvel's new Ultraman books, the new graphic novel introduces readers to Cássia Costa, a teenage girl who finds herself in possession of a mystical bracelet that transforms her into the magically powered hero Inferno Girl Red. Joining Groom on the book is artist Erica D'Urso who has previously worked on Captain Marvel, colourist Igor Monti, and letterer Becca Carey.
The book has been described as combining high school super-heroics drama of Into The Spider-Verse with the dynamic storytelling and world-building of Japanese tokusatsu superheroes, with the intrigue and relationship drama of Britich boarding school fiction thrown in too.
'We all need something to believe in. Especially Cássia Costa.
'An ancient cult and their army of demons have stolen Cássia’s home, Apex City. When a magical dragon bracelet rockets into her life and affixes itself to her arm, Cássia’s the only person equipped to stop the cult from offering the entire city to their dark lord.
'There's just one catch...
'The magical bracelet is powered by belief, and Cássia — an intensely pragmatic, rational girl – doesn’t have much to spare. She’ll have to find something to kindle her faith, though, and fast —because she has a secret legacy to live up to. Because her mother's life is on the line. And because Apex City needs Inferno Girl Red.'
The lead character of the book, Cássia, is a hero that immediately jumps off the page from a lot of other super-hero comics. Not only is she a teenage girl, she's also a person of colour, and stands out even more thanks to her vitiligo; making her one of the only super heroes with the condition.
'Cássia’s not shy– but bouncing around from city-to-city as her Mom bounced from job-to-job meant it was hard to make friends... and any friends she did make disappeared pretty quickly once they found out who Cássia’s mother was. So instead of socialising, she focused on learning– showing a particular aptitude for science.
'Now Cássia has a chance for a fresh start in Apex City. Her impressive test scores have earned her an invitation to the world-famous entrepreneur Doctor Janine Caro’s prestigious boarding school for promising young minds. There, Cássia starts to settle in. She starts to make friends. She starts to see a future for herself.
'But when a magical bracelet blasts through a window while Cássia is studying late one night, everything changes. Cássia's quickly drawn into a strange war that she previously only heard about from her mother... '
The Kickstarter was launched on March 30th, and has already reached it's goal. This means that not only is the book definitely going ahead, but those who've decided to back the project are also being treated to a number of stretch goals.
Mat has already added a bookmark ribbon to the hardcover edition, an exclusive to the Kickstarter before the book hits shops, and has also announced that an extra twenty pages of story will be added to the book, returning content to the story that was initially removed.
Most exciting of all, however, is the newly added reward tier that offers people the chance to own a full scale, wearable replica of the Inferno Girl Red helmet. Created by the amazing folks at Starchild Props (who have produced some of the amazing new helmets from the Power Raners comics) it's a truly stunning piece. At the time of writing this there is still one of these amazing helmets left of the ten that were produced, so if you're interested you should definitely head over to the Kickstarter and grab it whilst you can.
The Kickstarter also has some brilliant behind the scenes looks at the designs of several characters, as well as a couple of preview pages that sees our new hero going up against The Griffin, the spooky new villain for the book.
Having been a fan of Mat's work since before he even began writing comics, listening to his brilliant Power Rangers podcast Ranger Danger, I reached out to Mat to ask him a little about the project, and am pleased to be able to bring you some insight into the new book.
Inferno Girl Red is being described as Tokusatsu inspired, which whilst being a very distinct area of super hero stories still has a lot of variety on offer. From the way the story is described it sounds like Inferno Girl Red is leaning more on the mystical side of Tokusatsu, would that be a correct assumption?
Yeah! We’re going to be playing a bit with more sci-fi technology as well, in terms of the greater world around our lead character Cássia – but the inferno powers, that come from the Dragon Gauntlet, very much leaning into the mystical side of the Tokusatsu spectrum yeah. There are just so many exciting possibilities in that conception of ‘magic’, it’s so expressive and creative and so much more about fantastically expressing core ideas than rote imitation of what’s come before. So I’m very happy to have the opportunity to put our spin on that.
You’ve previously brought Tokusatsu hero Ultraman to life with Kyle Higgins, after working on a pre-established character was it a difficult transition to creating something completely fresh and new?
It’s always difficult to create an entirely new world, I think, but it’s very much the fun sort of challenge, you know? But it’s actually not entirely different to ULTRAMAN – because with that, as much as we had existing characters and ideas to use as touch-points, as a new version of that universe we did have to build a new conceptualisation of the world. We had to create a new history, re-imagine the entire cast, re-imagine the cosmological aspects... so there was a lot of world-building there, too. In many ways, it was good practice.
Despite the book being a new property it seems like there’s a lot of history to be discovered there if the preview pages are anything to go by, did you end up creating a lot of backstory to these characters, and if so how much of that will be seeing in the book?
There’s a lot of history to this world, yeah. I’ve developed a lot of backstory, some of which will come up explicitly in the story, some of which won’t—but it’s very important to me to have a firm understanding of where these characters have come from, to inform where they’re heading. And with the larger world-building stuff, I think it’s wise to build one or two layers deeper than you think you’ll actually need, if that makes sense – because though you might not need to go down to that level now, you might need to later… and you’ll be kicking yourself if you’ve written yourself into a trap because you didn’t flesh things out properly, y’know?
I love that the lead character in your book isn’t your average superhero, what with her being a young woman of colour. I think it’s great to see more representation in comics, and think that this definitely helps the book further stand out. Did you find it a difficult process writing Cassia’s story, was there added pressure knowing that you would probably get extra attention for having her as the lead?
I certainly felt an extra level of responsibility, for sure. I think the biggest responsibility I felt was ensuring we found a female artist/co-creator for the project, because I knew we needed that perspective and lived experience for Cássia to feel at all authentic. Outside of that, I think all we can do is be mindful and empathetic and considerate, and try and tell the most compelling story possible to do the character justice.
What made you decide to work with Erica D’Urso on the book, what was it about her work that made her feel like a good fit for the project?
I think the two key things for a superhero comics artist to have are an ability to do thrilling, dynamic action that jumps off the page, and the ability to depict genuine-feeling, affecting human emotion. You really need both ends of that spectrum to do the job right. Erica is a master of both of those elements, which is something we were looking for—but she also has this particular style that’s hard to define, but it’s just bursting with humanity. Each character has such a specific look and way of being that they instantly feel like real people, at least to me. It’s like a magic trick. Erica is incredible.
What things can people expect if they decide to take part in the Kickstarter project?
Depending at what level they back—120 pages of thrilling and (I believe) moving storytelling, with absolutely electric art, in a premium oversized hardcover, plus art prints from some of the industry’s best talents!
If this goes well can we expect to see more from Inferno Girl Red in the future?
We’re focused right now on providing a full, satisfying and compelling book for our Backers—but yeah, we’re all absolutely in love with this world and these characters and we’d love to return to INFERNO GIRL RED.
The Kickstarter for Inferno Girl Red is currently live now, and if this is a project that interests you I'd definitely encourage you to check it out and perhaps consider backing it (I've already secured my copy of the book!). And if you're a fan of tokusatsu inspired work you should also check out Radiant Black, Ultraman, and the Power Rangers comics too. As someone who loves these types of stories it's definitely a great time to be reading these books.
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