DF Interview: Stephanie Phillips introduces a most unpredictable outlaw couple in ‘Red Before Black’

By Byron Brewer

On a special assignment from the FBI, disgraced army veteran Val is sent to Florida to hunt down an infamous drug runner named Leo. But she soon finds that they have an unexpected enemy in common, turning the game of cat-and-mouse into something else entirely!

Coming from BOOM! Studios, Red Before Black is a violent, hyperkinetic, women-led crime thriller reminiscent of 2000s-era Vertigo from writer Stephanie Phillips (Grim, Harley Quinn) and artist Goran Sudžuka (Hellblazer, Y The Last Man). I caught up with a very busy Stephanie Phillips to discuss this new miniseries!

Byron Brewer: Stephanie, what is it about the crime thriller genre for you as an author that produces a book like the coming Red Before Black?

Stephanie Phillips: I like crime as a genre, but I think there’s a lot more room for women within the space of crime fiction. I wanted to really create a women-led story that is wrapped up in the criminal underworld of Florida, where I’m from. Florida has tons of history with crime, so it’s a perfect setting.

Byron: The worlds you build in your books could always easily be almost a character unto themselves and so it is with your “Florida” in this comic. Tell readers a little about the canvas you are setting for August and why it is a “hometown” tale for you of sorts.

Stephanie Phillips: I think Florida is really weird and exists as a series of contradictions. Paradise and hell coinciding in one location. At every turn, I want to look at those contradictions and hold them up to our characters, who are reflecting a lot of the unexpected side of Florida in their own behavior and challenges. And I know Florida, so what better way to really use the setting. I grew up there… I had a Florida piercing as a kid (catching the little lizards that are everywhere and letting them bite your earlobe so they dangle off).

Byron: Introduce us to Val. Who is she? What in the world happened to disgrace her in the military? Is she now a bounty hunter?

Stephanie Phillips: Val is former military who is recently out of prison and looking for employment from an old friend from her service days. She’s stoic, intense, and she has no time for games of any kind. But there’s a lot more to her than readers will know initially… her true motivations and what she’s dealing with will be revealed over time…

Byron: Who is Leo, and what is her relationship to Val?

Stephanie Phillips: Leo was selling drugs for a group of guys in Miami, but she decided to take more product and sell it for extra cash. She got caught, and now Val has been sent to “take care of” her. Leo is the walking contradiction to Val. If Val has no time for games, Leo wants to play them all.

Byron: What other characters are important to the series? Can you spotlight any here?

Stephanie Phillips: The main focus is on Val and Leo, but they meet lots of characters throughout Florida as the series progresses. Some weird and unusual characters that reflect different parts of Florida.

Byron: What would you like readers to know about Red Before Black before picking up issue #1?

Stephanie Phillips: While this is a grounded crime story, there are also elements of magic realism, which I’m very excited about. It also deals a lot with trauma and how trauma can be a haunting figure that seems very tangible at times. The themes and the setting make it a really personal story.

Byron: Talk about the awesome art of Goran Sudžuka.

Stephanie Phillips: It’s awesome. Goran is a perfect accomplice for this series. He brings experience in crime fiction and his storytelling is so perfect for this kind of moody story that has a lot of emphasis on the setting. I really feel so lucky to be working with him.

Byron: Stephanie, what other projects in which you are involved can you tell readers about?

Stephanie Phillips: I’m co-writing a book with Brian Azzarello and artist Danijel ŽeŽelj at DSTLRY called LIFE. It’s a science fiction crime story about prisoners who are forced to live out their full life sentences – if you have 30 life sentences, you are kept alive for over 2,000 years to live out the entirety of the sentence. LIFE is a flipbook, so each issue is two full stories told from competing and interlocking perspectives. It’s really unlike anything I’ve worked on and it also comes out in August. Maybe a good compliment to Red Before Black.

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Stephanie Phillips for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer our questions. Red Before Black #1 from BOOM! Studios is slated to be on sale August 7!

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