Monster Befrienders and a Slew of Horror/Comedy: It’s a Blood City Rollers Q&A with V.P. Anderson & Tatiana Hill

The problem with most roller derby graphic novels for kids these days? Not enough blood-sucking undead. Obviously. As such, you can understand why I was so happy to hear about the book Blood City Rollers by V.P. Anderson and Tatiana Hill. It’s not that we haven’t seen roller derby in children’s books before, but adding in a supernatural element as well? *chef’s kiss*

And take a gander at that plot:

Skates on. Fangs out. Let’s roll. This perfectly paranormal graphic novel about a 13-year-old ice skater who embraces the dark side and finds her light when she joins a vampire roller derby team is to die for.

Ice-skater Mina is on a one-track path to Olympic gold and glory—that is, until she totally wipes out at her biggest competition, and is kinda-sorta-kidnapped by undead kids on roller skates. Sucked into the high stakes world of Paranormal Roller Derby, she finds herself “recruited” by a squad of vampires who need a human player to complete their team—just in time to save the league from losing it all.

Between learning to play derby well enough to kick butt on the track, crushing hard on the dreamy team captain, and navigating the spooky rules of the supernatural, how can Mina go from striving to be a ten alone, to becoming one of nine chaotic bodies forming a perfectly-imperfect team? Forget being the best. Will she be enough to help her new friends survive the season?

I knew bupkiss about this book’s creators, so the sky was the limit when it came to questions. Gear up!

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Betsy Bird: V! Thanks so much for answering my questions today! I found BLOOD CITY ROLLERS to be completely engaging and delightful. So I have to kick everything off by asking, where did you get the notion to combine roller derby with the undead?

V.P. Anderson: As a lifelong monster befriender and lover of horror/comedy, I feel like it wasn’t so much a choice as it was the natural result of putting a writer on a roller derby team and then locking them down in a pandemic with only creativity as their outlet for all that angst. It was either this, or start a pottery business where I make little Cthulhu mugs and sell them on Etsy. (Tbh, I might do that later anyway.)

BB: Well, that just makes me want to ask Tatiana something then. Tatiana, how did you first hear about BLOOD CITY ROLLERS and what made you want to take on the project?

Tatiana Hill: I heard about BLOOD CITY ROLLERS right after V slid into my DM’s on Etsy and asked if I was interested in illustrating a graphic novel. I may or may not have thought it was a scam, but I was extremely glad that it wasn’t. From there V pitched the story to me and I was immediately hooked as a fellow roller skater and thought the story along with my art would be a great fit.

BB: Ah, the old sliding into someone’s DMs trick. Glad to hear it sometimes goes quite well. Now one element of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the contrast between figure skating, an often solo occupation, and the camaraderie and teamwork required in roller derby. V, I know you skate yourself, but did you ever ice skate? Or has it always been roller derby for you from the start?

V: I’m glad you asked, because I do happen to have a hilarious picture of myself eating ice (metaphorically) at 16, during my first date ever. I was never on track for Olympic gold, alas. But I absolutely would go back in time and join a junior roller derby league given the chance. Maybe a premise for another book?

BB: That could work. Speaking of which, Tatiana, how much did you know about roller derby before you came to work on this book? Did you have to do any kind of special research for it?

Tatiana: I became increasingly familiar with roller derby from my peers in the LA roller skating community. A lot of the people that first welcomed me into this community were from the Los Angeles Derby Dolls. Movies like Whip It helped introduce me to the sport, but it was definitely the derby players I met at the skatepark that familiarized me with that community even more.

BB: We’ve seen some other roller derby related graphic novels before (the Newbery Honor winning ROLLER GIRL by Victoria Jamieson being most memorable) but, Tatiana, what I like about your book so much is the deep dive into the rules, strategy, and logistics of the game. Was that something you wanted to highlight from the start or did it come in later?

Tatiana: Initially, the manuscript was much lighter on the rules of PRD, mostly because it was meant to feel like the readers were getting thrown in headfirst and getting a “crash course” along with Mina. But the more details we added in terms of penalties, rankings, etc. also make room for more questions and confusion (much like in IRL derby, when players are getting started) so finding the right balance of info-tainment was key. This is also why we created an official website for the shadowy PRD governing body, Evil on Wheels. As the series progresses, we’ll learn more details about this mysterious, monster-led, and constantly evolving sport!

BB: Excellent! Now V, tell us a bit about your revision process and input from your editor. How much does the final BLOOD CITY ROLLERS resemble the initial version you wrote?

V: Since the original version of the script was something like 96 pages (because at the time, I was also developing it as an animated feature film; now it’s morphing into an animated series) there’s a lot we added in terms of Mina’s home life and relationships. One of the early motifs in terms of feedback was how Mina could potentially balance “real life” with her paranormal adventures. To be honest, I pushed back on some of that, because for me as a neurodivergent kid who grew up, fiction and fantasy were more reliable safe spaces for me compared to stricter systems like home, church, and school. But as we went through the process, I realized that there’s always a way to pay homage to where we came from.

BB: Speaking of fear, Tatiana, in this book you’ve got an array of vampiric roller derby characters. And since this is a middle grade, your job was to make them definitely vampires but also not so terrifying that this book crossed over into YA territory. How did you come to finally settle on the look of the Blood City Vamps?

Tatiana: Funnily enough, my first crack at designing the Vamps actually ended up looking too cute since their fangs weren’t as long and their eyes weren’t as piercing. So luckily it was definitely easier to add more edge than to tone down the designs. In the opposite vein, the original description for one of the Vamps had arm tattoos when V was deciding between a YA or middle grade story. We decided to remove the tattoos but some of the Vamps have multiple ear piercings to add that edge back to them.

BB: I know we already touched on this already, but I want to get V’s take. Did you already know Tatiana’s work before she was paired on the project? How do you feel about the final product?

V: I first beheld Tatiana’s artistic glory in the form of her Roller World Tarot Deck, which my birth league (Salt City Roller Derby) featured as part of a shop skater-owned products promotion. I ordered one immediately, and realized her art style was an exact match for the version of Blood City I’d been seeing in my head. So, being the suave individual I am, I slid into her Etsy DMs in a totally cool and not at all creepy fashion and asked if she’d ever considered illustrating a graphic novel. Luckily for me, she didn’t delete me as spam!

BB: Lucky for all of us. Tatiana, you’ve a BA in Animation yourself. Is this a help at all when constructing a graphic novel? Is there much overlap between animation and comics, particularly when you’re sketching them out?

Tatiana: My background in Animation has come to be my biggest asset when working on this project. Storyboarding, character designing, color keying, and 3D modeling all came into play when sketching panels, fleshing out the paranormal characters, creating emotional shifts, and making backgrounds. You’ll even find a lot of acting and exaggerated facial expressions among the characters as an homage to American and Japanese animation.

BB: V, we can’t close out without asking the most important question of all: You compete in roller derby as Scarlett Five. What is the meaning behind your name?

V: Last week, someone asked me if it had anything to do with Maroon 5, and my answer was a resounding NOPE. It’s actually a Star Wars, Buffy, and Marvel reference mashed into one. Prepare to get nerdy! Luke Skywalker’s call sign was “Red Five,” and I’ve always loved the character Scarlet Witch. My number (55) is a reference to my favorite slayer (Faith Lehane)’s catch phrase, “five by five.” Spoiler: I’m kind of a lot.

BB: I’m just trying to figure out how I don’t remember Faith’s catch phrase! And Tatiana, what are you working on next?

Tatiana: I’m currently illustrating my next graphic novel, but additional info on that has yet to be announced. BUT, with BLOOD CITY ROLLERS as my illustration debut, I have festivals lined up in Los Angeles and Columbus which I am incredibly excited for!

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Whew! Awesome stuff. Big thanks to V and Tatiana for answering my questions today. And thanks too to Joey Ho and the folks at Random House Children’s Books for setting this up. Blood City Rollers is on shelves now so run on out and grab yourself a couple copies at your local bookstore or library.

Filed under: Interviews