I spoke with writer Vince Hernandez about his latest volume of “Charismagic,” part of Aspen’s 10 For $10 initiative. The first issue is out this Wednesday, May 1!

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“EXCLUSIVE: Hernandez Takes Center Stage in Aspen’s ‘Charismagic’ v2” — Click to read entire article 

“Aspen Comics Editor in Chief Vince Hernandez pulls double duty as the writer/creator of the fantasy series ‘Charismagic.’ The series stars a Las Vegas magician named Hank who discovers his abilities are much more real than simple parlor tricks. Lacking any combat experience, Hank is forced into a dangerous conflict against dark magic, accompanied by his talking cat Sparkles and the beautiful druid Sudana. In the wake of ‘Charismagic’ volume 1’s completion and nearly wrapped ‘Charismagic: Death Princess’ prequel miniseries, Aspen and Hernandez are preparing to launch ‘Charismagic’ volume 2 featuring artwork by Vincenzo Cuccaand vibrant colors by Emilio Lopez.

CBR News: A threading theme throughout ‘Charismagic’ is fear. The main villain of Volume 1, Samsun, imposes it on others throughout the story and in Volume 2 the Death Princess feeds off it. What makes fear such a driving force in ‘Charismagic?’

Vince Hernandez: Fear is a very powerful emotion for storytelling — you can go in any direction with how a character responds to their own fears and what drives them to do the things they do. With Samsun a lot of his anger and motivations are built out of fear in how people respond to him and what he can do to others. However, even the good guys in ‘Charismagic’ have their own fear challenged — our leading man Hank responded heroically to his fear. What he didn’t know he jumped into full-bore. Comparatively, Kon, one of the most powerful characters in the story, ran when confronted with his fear in ‘Death Princess.’ The all powerful wizard doesn’t always act heroic.

I want my characters challenged and grounded — fear makes a lot of sense to do this. People like to think they’d act heroically when put in fearful situations. I like to think I would, but at the end of the day when considering what the characters are confronted with in these books, I’d probably run my ass off too.”