Scare Tactics (comics)
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| Publication date | December 1996 – March 1998 |
| Number of issues | 12 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Len Kaminski |
Scare Tactics is a comic book series published by DC Comics. A total of twelve issues appeared, dated from December 1996 to March 1998. The series, written by Len Kaminski, was a part of DC's Weirdoverse group of titles.
Publication history
Len Kaminski had the following idea to help promote the book.[1]
I had planned on there being a real-life ST fan club package, which would’ve included a small poster, a backstage pass and a cassette “bootleg” of one of their songs. I wrote the song, and went out of pocket a grand or two on a great east village band (which I can’t name due to weird contract stuff with their manager), studio time (sound engineering and the actual “tune” donated gratis by my friend [and ST fan] Ed) – only to have DC tell me to cut it out, I didn’t own the rights to ST (and besides, it was hinted, they didn’t need me running around making their marketing department look bad). So I had a crate of hundreds of those cassettes on my hands for years before I finally ditched them, keeping just a few for myself.
DC Comics promoted the book in the middle of the series’ run by creating a series of one-shots teaming some team members with notable DC characters:[1]
- Catwoman Plus #1 (featuring Scream Queen)
- Impulse Plus #1 (featuring Gross-Out)
- Robin Plus #2 (featuring Fang)
- Superboy Plus #2 (featuring Slither)
Fictional biography
The series focused on the band Scare Tactics, teenage monsters who escaped from government custody and decided to hide in plain sight by becoming traveling rock and roll musicians, trying to escape their pasts while encountering supernatural adventures on the road.
The band members consisted of:
- Arnold Burnsteel (band's scruffy human conspiracy theorist manager/bus driver who rescued them from the top secret R-Complex facility in New Mexico with the help of his friend Jared Stevens, a smuggler of arcane artifacts transformed into the ankh-scarred, mystic golden blade-wielding demon hunter known as Fate)
- Fang (lead guitarist Jake Ketchum – hard-rocking hillbilly werewolf fleeing from an arranged marriage meant to end a long-running feud between two Appalachian creature clans)
- Gross-Out (drummer Philbert Hoskins – bullied fat kid obsessed with astronomy mutated by meteorite radiation into a hulking and hungry grey sludge monster; despite his revolting appearance and inability to talk clearly, he is intelligent, goodhearted and extremely loyal to his bandmates who are the first real friends he has ever had, and eventually when his mutation reaches its final form he evolves into a perfect god-like being who flies off to be amongst the stars he loves)
- Scream Queen (lead singer Nina Skorzeny – sexy and cynical human-hating vampire who came to America to escape the "ethnic cleansing" of her kind in her native Markovia; like Carmilla, she can turn into a black cat)
- Slither (bass guitarist James Tilton – human-reptile hybrid created by scientist father as part of his medical experiments who is secretly in love with Nina but worried that the increasing viciousness of his lizard side could cause him to hurt her and his friends)
References
- 1 2 Brian Cronin (May 6, 2011). Comic Book Resources, ed. "Comic Book Legends Revealed #312". Retrieved May 18, 2011.
External links
'Scare Tactics' at the Grand Comics Database