Dada is co-created by Pat Mills and myself. Pat suggested a couple of real-life characters that we could look into as a source of inspiration. From the
get-go, I was hellbent on avoiding the stereotypical punk look. As I am quite familiar with the punk/goth subcultures myself – having been part of the Camden scene for many years, I knew exactly what not to do in terms of design and the character’s attitude. The experimental musician Danielle Dax has proven to be the ideal model to start with. Dada used to be an art student at the University of Liverpool pre- Warp.
I know a couple of people who share some personality traits with her, as described by Pat. So it was just a matter of drawing what I know. Readers unconsciously detect insincerity by the artist when presented with stock characters. One could partially solve that problem by way of extensive research, but I guess falling back to the safety of stereotypes does seem less time consuming if somehow, of poor taste.
Fortunately, I found myself in a position where I could accomplish all that by borrowing from personal experience.
Dada is a girl with an attitude and a big gun, but she isn’t your bad-girl bimbo. She ain’t Tank Girl either.
She is very much her own character and I can’t wait for readers to get to know her.