DF Interview: Frank Gogol tells of three teens coping with childhood trauma in ‘Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job’

By Byron Brewer

Seven years after the deadly events of September 11th, three teens struggle with the long-term fallout of that tragic day. But these former friends are brought back together when they find themselves in the crosshairs of a local drug dealer who's out for blood. Can they put their personal traumas aside long enough to work together and survive?

No Heroine's Frank Gogol re-teams with Nenad Cviticanin for an all-new entry in the Dead End Kids saga. And DF is here to tell you all about it, courtesy of scribe Frank Gogol.

Dynamic Forces: Frank, how elated were you at the success of the first Dead End Kids book? Some pretty heavy story there.

Frank Gogol: I’m still pretty blown away by the reaction to the series. I’m always very managed in my expectations. I try to be realistic. And I was not at all ready for how strongly readers and retailers responded to the book.

I still get retailers, more than a year later, who ask me if I can help them get copies of the series.

One of my hopes as a creator is to tell stories about things that matter to me. That was true with GRIEF. It was true with No Heroine. And it was true with Dead End Kids. And that each of these books has been received as well as they have been, that tells me I’m on the right path. To keep doing what I’ve been doing – telling stories that matter to me and that readers can connect with.

DF: Was there anything in particular that prompted you to do this sequel series?

Frank Gogol: If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do more Dead End Kids. The first book was such a bigger success than I think anyone could have imagined that you start to wonder if another series can live up to the hype of the original.

I started thinking about what another series might look like and taking a True Detective-style approach— something with a new setting, a new cast, and a new crime— really started to make sense. But if I was going to do more, I needed a reason to tell that story.

I went back to the core concept of the original series— childhood trauma and how it affects us as we get older. And I started thinking back on my own life and the things that really affected me. I kept coming back to this idea of September 11th.

I grew up in a really small, poor town in New Jersey, across the Raritan Bay from lower Manhattan, and in clear days, you could see the World Trade Center. I remember standing on our beachfront on 9/11 and watching the smoke billow up from the wreckage. I remember looking around and seeing everyone there with me, seeing the horror and pain in their faces. It’s something I’ve literally thought about every day since.

September 11th is a day that hit everyone in the country really hard. But I wondered how it impacted kids. I was thirteen when it happened and I know I’ve carried it with me. What about other people my age? The kids of first responders? The siblings of the soldiers who went to war?

Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job isn’t a September 11th story, though. It’s a story about the childhood trauma that stems from that day. It’s about how that day is still impacting these kids’ lives seven years later in 2008.” 

But this wouldn’t be a Dead End Kids book without some crime, right? This time around our kids are caught up in a heist plot and it goes very, very badly for them.

At the end of the day, my biggest priority is to tell stories that are about something that people can connect with. And With Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job — I really think we’ve created something that will connect with so many people. These kids are so real and what they’re going through is so raw. I can’t wait for people to be able to read it in January.

DF: For the uninitiated, can you give readers a brief summary of the events of Book 1?

Frank Gogol: The original Dead End Kids (volume one, as we have to call it now) was the story of three kids in 1999 trying to solve their friend’s murder. Think “Stand By Me” meets “The Hardy Boys” but much darker.

On the surface, it was a whodunit. But really, the story was an exploration of childhood trauma and it asks the question: Do the horrible things that happen to us as kids determine who we grow up to be?

DF: As we pick up the first comic in this sequel series, The Suburban Job, where do we find the characters? Can you introduce our main cast here and tell us how they are coping, as we rejoin their story?

Frank Gogol: The Suburban Job is actually a fresh start with a new cast. We took a sort of a True Detective approach to the sequel. It’s a new set of kids in a new place.

Originally there wasn’t going to be a sequel. Dead End Kids was supposed to be one-and-done. But after the success of the first series, the opportunity was there to do more stories.

At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do more. The first book was such a hit and the ending has a pretty fine point on it. It’d be hard to tell more stories without possibly taking away from the original. Especially if the second book was a dud.

But after a while I started to get bits and pieces of what a new story might look like and eventually a story took root.

DF: Give readers an elevator pitch for the new series.

Frank Gogol: Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job is the story of three teens who are all the relatives and loved ones of people who died on or because of September 11th.

I want to stress that this isn’t a 9/11 story. I wasn’t interested in making tragedy porn and making money from it. This is a story about three kids who were deeply impacted by the terrorist attacks and how that impacted their lives seven years later. What are they going through? How are they hurting?

It’s also a heist story.

DF: Tell us what you can about the big-bad.

Frank Gogol: Our big-bad is a small-town drug dealer named Ray-Ray. In a lot of ways, he’s a foil for our main characters. They’re each a different kind of exploration of how September 11th could deeply affect a young person’s life. Ray-Ray’s been impacted by it in a big way, too, but it sent his life in a very different direction than the other characters. He’s definitely one of my favorite characters I’ve ever created and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s also true for a lot of people who pick up the book.

DF: Talk about the art of Nenad Cviticanin.

Frank Gogol: I could talk all day about Nenad. He was my first-ever collaborator (he drew my first short comic “Embrace”) and also my most frequent collaborator. I think that speaks about just how much I admire him and love working with him. He’s got a work ethic unlike any artist I’ve encountered and the matching set of artistic skills.

The best thing has been watching him get better over the last four and a half years. He was an incredible artist when we started working together. And now? I’d be surprised if we don’t see him working on a Marvel or DC or Image book with a name much bigger than mine very soon.

DF: Frank, what other projects might you have upcoming that you can tell readers about?

Frank Gogol: There’s nothing I can really say too much about right now. There’s a sci-fi thing on the publishing schedule with Source Point Press. There’s another thing that’ll most likely land there, too, for next fall/winter.

I can say that the success of No Heroine and Dead End Kids did open some doors with bigger publishers. Again, I can’t say much, but those publishers reached out to me about pitching, which is always a nice change of pace. There are a couple of pitches with the one publisher and the editor at the second publisher and I developed a pitch from scratch together, which was pretty cool.

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Frank Gogol for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. Dead End Kids: The Suburban Job #1 from Source Point Press is slated to hit stores Jan. 27, 2021!

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