by Jason Vaughn

“Evil isn’t a force…it’s a choice…I’m weighing my options.”

- Jack Springheel

Digital comics have exploded on to the internet at such an exponential rate, it’s no surprise when top industry creators collaborate to craft passion projects online. Artist Dennis Calero, who is best known for his work in Platinum Comics’ “Cowboys and Aliens” as well as his Harvey Award-nominated run in Marvel’s “X-Factor,” has teamed up with writer/actor Todd Stashwick (“Heroes,” “Men of a Certain Age,” “The Riches”) to create one hell of a story about the Devil questioning his own role in the grand scheme of the universe. The “Devil Inside” has become such an underground cult hit that the web comic is vastly approaching eight hundred thousand hits in just its first year. The log line on Todd’s website describes the series better than I could:

“A guns blazing, white knuckled, preternatural joy ride to hell and back. Go on the road with the Devil himself, Jack Springheel. A man with a bounty on his head, Jack is running from a past, searching for a new truth and trying to keep the Devil inside.”

I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with Todd and Dennis (albeit through several interruptions due to technical difficulties, thank you very much AT&T) about the inception of their successful indie strip, “Devil Inside.”

Thanks for taking the time guys; I’m a big fan of both of your work. Todd, I still have your “Scarpulla rap” on my DVR (“Men of a Certain Age”), I think you missed your calling.

T: I apologize for that posthumous.

And, Dennis, your run on X-Factor is still one of the best in the series so far.

D: Thank you so much!

You guys are professionally from two different worlds, how did you end up collaborating on this web series?

T: Well, it sort of happened on Twitter actually. I was on “Heroes” and they introduced the character in a web comic before the TV show, and Dennis was the artist on that comic. I’m a comic book fan myself, so when I saw a promo of the online book, I immediately ran to check out how I was being represented, and I was being well represented. So I started using Twitter, and I made my avatar on Twitter one of his drawings. Then I contacted Dennis just to touch base and also that I dug this (the avatar pic), and he was a fan of the show I was on called “The Riches,” and so we built a friendship that way. He said that he was coming in to L.A. and wanted to meet up for coffee. We started discussing all the things we were  into, our favorite video games, comic books, movies, all assorted types of geekery. I had a germ of an idea about the Devil having a crisis of conscience and he said ‘Hey, let’s do that as a web comic.’

That was actually my next question. How did you come up with the idea?

T: Well, I play villains all the time, so I’m often fascinated with the idea of the occult. Sort of getting into the psyche of a villain, and I’m always trying to find the layers on the other side. There’s just too many to deal with. So all in all, almost everything I play on TV is a lot like the guy with a bullet in his head. My objective basically was to make a protagonist by extenuating circumstances into this space. And so I thought who is the ultimate villain, and obviously the Devil, so I went “what if the Devil was having a crisis of conscience, and started questioning his own path?” Then I turned to Dennis and he and I created a whole cosmology as well a series bible for the first arc of the story. Continue reading »