SYSTEM OF A DOWN’s JOHN DOLMAYAN talks zombie kills and family drama of new ‘Dead Samurai’ comic series

This isn’t exactly a spoiler, but plenty of people die in the first issue of Dead Samurai. The new zombie comic written by System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan is rife with flesh-eaters descending upon a village in 16th-century feudal Japan with rabidly voracious fervor. On the other hand, you also see a good swathe of the undead getting their domes lopped off by a super sharp katana blade. It gets gruesome, to say the least.

When reached at home to get into the backstory of the developing mini-series — the first issue of which hit shelves today (October 9th) and is available for order here — the alt-metal icon and lifelong comics fan explains that it was inspired by his love of Japanese history, the samurai lore of the early Eighties Wolverine mini-series, and writer-artist Robert Kirkman’s multi-media-galvanizing zombie survival epic, The Walking Dead. But when it came to conceptualizing lead character Shinzu, an honor-bound warrior stuck between two heritages, the Lebanon-born Dolmayan explains that this was in part inspired by his own experiences after his family immigrated to the United States.

“Part of Shinzu is based on me,” Dolmayan confirms, adding, “When we moved to the United States, I was the only Armenian kid in my class — in my school, actually. People made fun of my last name. People made fun of where I’m from. They didn’t know what we were. My mom would pack lunches, (and the other kids) didn’t know what the fuck the food was. Of course, all these people ate the food and then (started) begging me to bring food from home.”

Within Dead Samurai — which is Dolmayan’s second series, following his ongoing, eras-spanning sci-fi story, Ascensia — Shinzu becomes a conflicted figure after he’s unable to defend his master’s family during an early zombie attack. Though he’s set to commit ritualistic seppuku due to his massive failure — per tradition — Shinzu relents when he notices one of his Daimyo’s daughters has survived. The story is further poised to present a shamed samurai restoring his honor by protecting the child. “He has to make decisions based on what he thinks he is right,” Dolmayan says, “(but) what he thinks is right isn’t always right. He’s fallible. He’s a real person.”

Though it flirts with elements of horror and historical fiction, you could argue that, at its core, Dead Samurai is more of a family drama — albeit one that balances the complex emotional dynamics of its relationships with brain-eating gore. While decidedly less dire than a zombie invasion, Dolmayan recalls a few traumatic moments that elementally touch upon the burden of familial disappointment that aches within his story. A recent example, he says, was forgetting to pack his daughter’s lunch for school one day, and the guilt he felt as he rushed it over to her on the playground. He also recalls the utter shame he felt as a child after turning up his nose at a copy of Sleeping Beauty his mom thoughtfully picked out for him at the market: “The look of disappointment on my mom’s face is like a scar on my body to this day.”

Looping it all back to Dolmayan’s Dead Samurai, a number of emotional and physical scars run deep throughout the story. For Shinzu, the journey is about more than just reckoning with the dangers of the zombie invasion. It’s decidedly more duty-focused and personal. “This is his family, and he failed them,” Dolmayan explains. “That’s really what the story is about.”

Speaking with Revolver, he further weighs in Dead Samurai’s grotesque but oddly refined zombie kills, developing morality tales, how much comics lore he shares with his System bandmates, and where you might hear his drumming next.

We’re here to get into the Dead Samurai series, but before we hit the book itself, can you tell us a bit about your broader relationship with comics? How did you get into this medium in the first place?
John Dolmayan I was 12 years old. I had a very good friend, and we used to go to the movies every week and we’d see every movie — we’d pay our ticket price and then sneak into other movies after our movie was done, and just hang out there the whole day. But one week there was nothing (new) that had come out and we’d seen every movie three or four times. He was like, “Hey, instead of going to the movies together, why don’t we go to the comic book store?” And I was like, “What’s a comic book store?” I’d seen comics at 7-Eleven here and there, but I certainly didn’t know that there was a whole store dedicated to them. So, I thought, “OK, let’s get our bikes and ride to the comic book store!”

When I walked in, it was just love at first sight. I saw all these comic books on the wall — the John Byrne Fantastic Four’s at that time — and I fell in love with it instantly. I spent my entire $5 allowance that day at the comic book store on quarter books and got as many different books as possible. And that was the beginning of it.

I loved the superhero element. I loved the fact that they were selfless, for the most part, and a lot of them were broke. And although they had a lot of power, they didn’t use it for their own good. They used their powers to help others. I love that element of comic books the most.

How has your relationship with comics changed over the years?
The last series that I read was The Walking Dead, and I loved it. I don’t really like where a lot of the (other) characters have gone. I don’t really care about anyone’s politics per se… I’m not in line with the woke ideology, in general. I like characters to be based on their merits and I think there’s plenty of great characters that represent everybody.

I don’t like agendas. Entertainment in general is supposed to be an escape. I want it to be something that people can dive into and forget about their troubles, not be… reprimanded for thinking one way or another, either way. (I’m) not a fan of McCarthyism (from) the Fifties — I thought that was an awful time in our history. I think that it’s starting to subside now, but in the last 10 or 12 years we’ve had a rebirth of that McCarthyism, though it was going the other way (politically). Either way… I would spend my life defending people that thought differently than I do. That’s part of being an American.

Is there no room to discuss politics or differing thoughts within comics? Fiction can be a reflection of ourselves…
There absolutely is room, as long as it’s balanced. Not saying this side is right, or that side is right. (Uncanny X-men/Wolverine writer) Chris Claremont was very political in his writing, but there was room for thought and dissension and deferring opinions. Of course, you’re going to be biased to your opinions for the most part. But as long as you leave room for (other lines of thought), I’m OK with it.

But… there have always been political elements to comics, even from the very beginning. And if you think about it, a lot of the original creators back in the mid to late Thirties were Jewish, and think about what was happening in Europe during that time and how powerless they may have felt. I imagine that they came up with the character of Superman because they felt powerless. And here’s somebody that has a lot of power that can enforce justice. I’m Armenian. We’ve been the beneficiaries of our own problems, like the Armenian genocide, so we feel a lot of empathy.

Anyway… concerning my comic books, I really do try to leave my personal feelings out of things. I try to fracture my personality so that there is the very liberal side of me and the very conservative side of me, and there’s multiple levels between those. And I try to put those into different characters.

How did you go about developing the character of Shinzu — a kind of a fish out of water, Portuguese samurai seen as outsider within Japanese culture.
Shinzu is half Japanese and half Portuguese. His mother is an aristocrat from a very well-known samurai family in Japan — fictional, of course — and his father was a Portuguese trader. They fell in love and got married against the family’s wishes. When Shinzu was born, the father went back to sea and was never heard from again. I haven’t written it yet, but he’s lost at sea in my story.

So, Shinzu has to grow up basically ostracized by both cultures. He’s never truly accepted. But he’s got an incredible amount of willpower and fortitude. And he’s really a morally virtuous person. He will not be held down by the world. He never really feels like he fits in, but because of his incredible work ethic and aptitude he’s able to attain the highest level a samurai can attain by becoming the Daimyo’s personal bodyguard.

Then a leprosy-based zombie outbreak happens — it enters your brain, and it makes you kind of like a cannibal. You have no values, no understanding. You just know that you have to eat — whether that’s a baby, a rat, a human… it doesn’t matter. It’s not that they’re bad people… they’re just animals, basically.

(Shinzu) fails in his duty to protect his lord and their family, because they’re all wiped out from this outbreak. (After they’re) attacked at one point in the story, he feels honor-bound to commit seppuku, which is ritual suicide. As a samurai should. Before he has a chance to do that, though, he discovers that the youngest daughter is still alive. So now he has a duty to his deceased lord to keep this ward alive, and to get her to a place of safety.

It kind of becomes like a Three Musketeers story. He meets up with other people who are also misfits, in their own way. They band together, they fight against zombies, they fight against bandits. And it’s all to get this little girl to a place of safety.

Your ongoing Ascencia series is more rooted in sci-fi, while this one is playing with a few different genres — you’ve got the honor-bound samurai angle, a zombie apocalypse, and some general adventuring. How easy was it to put those genres together?
I love feudal Japan. I love the history of it. I love the way the samurai looked at their lives, in general. But I (also) love The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead… I would watch all that shit over and over again. So, I needed to see something that merged those. I don’t know if there has been too much that has been inclusive of both these worlds.

Ascencia is like Game of Thrones on steroids. It’s a massive world. It spans 1912 to 2100, and there are characters that are alive throughout because of an immortality aspect. I’m asking people to really be patient with it, (because) it’s just not a quick payout. I know we live in a TikTok era… but Ascencia, like, you’ve got to dedicate years to reading this book. But it’s going to take you a lot of different places. And I’m putting a lot of genres into that story. It’s not just sci-fi — there’s mafia elements to it, gangs, there’s love triangles.

You mentioned loving films like Dawn of the Dead, these classic zombie splatter movies, but the kills in the first issue of Dead Samurai are presented quite cleanly. That could come down to Ryan Benjamin’s art style, but maybe it also has to do with the actual physics of using a precise samurai blade. These aren’t entrails-dripping zombie kills. How did you go about discussing the series’ death aesthetic with Ryan?
Well, I have very detailed scripts. But I still leave room for the artists to come up with what they’re going to come up with.

But if a samurai is killing something, it’s going to be a clean kill. Those guys train their entire lives for that. And part of Bushido is to not make someone suffer. You respect your opponent and you want to make it as painless and quick of a death for (them) as possible. Now, in the second and third issues you’re going to have more deaths that aren’t caused by samurai. They’re caused by zombies, and that’s when you get a little bit more of the entrails and all that, because that’s a destructive force and not a honed, trained samurai. It is going to be a juxtaposition of the two going back and forth.

Ryan Benjamin gets it — he loves the culture. He loves feudal Japan. Not as much as I do, but pretty close. When I told him about the idea, he jumped at it. Then we got Alex Sinclair to do colors. He’s fantastic. And Bill Sienkiewicz is doing all of the main covers.

Do you ever talk comics — whether that’s the medium, writ large, or the series you’re creating —with your System bandmates?
I think I tried explaining the concepts to them a couple of times. I have shared it with them, but never asked them their opinions, as I never really asked anyone’s opinion (on the books), except for (famed comics writer-artist) Jim Lee. I initially asked him to look up my scripts. He made some great suggestions, and I rewrote them.

Of course, I’m still an amateur writer… (but) Ascencia is going to be coming onto the 30th issue pretty soon. I look back to the way I began, and (the plot) is so convoluted and confusing. There are things I’m not going to explain for another year or two, but I know the explanations are coming. That’s why I say people really have to stick with it.

Do you have several years of Dead Samurai in mind, as well?
It’s a mini-series, only about seven or eight issues, but I have two or three additional mini-series that can follow it up. That’s if people are interested in it. I’m going to find out pretty quickly if people care!

Shifting to your work as a drummer for a moment, how was it playing on Serj’s new Foundations EP?
I actually recorded that in 2006. But he just released it, (and) I was there for the video (“Cartoon Buyer”).

What are you currently working on then?
Not much, musically. We do some System shows here and there. I actually am not very motivated to play drums right now. I’m getting my artistry out in different ways.

Not to be egotistical, but there’s a certain point where (even) if you practice, you’re not really getting better unless you put in so many hours. And the incremental difference it makes to your technique is so small, it’s hardly worth the time. Whereas with writing, I feel like I get better with every issue. I’m learning. So, it’s more exciting for me to do that.

But I’ve thrown around the idea of making a fusion album, like a Maynard Ferguson/Jaco Pastorius/Al Di Meola kind of thing. I know some people that I’d like to work on it with, but again, for me to get back to the technical proficiency I need would probably take about six months of real intensive rehearsals. I just have to judge whether or not I can do that. I have three kids and a wife. I play poker weekly…It’s a balance at the end of the day.

Was there an intense rehearsal period before System’s show in San Francisco the other month?
Oh my God… the intense two rehearsals that we did for that show were incredible. I mean, you want to talk about a band that is way better than we deserve to be, it’s System of a Down. I don’t get it. We barely play, and I don’t think the guys rehearse very much on their own, but something happens when we’re up there, man. We gel, and we’re powerful. I would say not too many bands want to play after us.

Any standout moments from that show to you?
When you don’t play that frequently, the whole thing’s fun. I did enjoy jumping around with the guys in our “jump hug” after that ‘Frisco show. That, and picking up Shavo (Odadjian, SOAD bassist). I was going to throw him in the audience, but I felt like maybe that would’ve been going too far…

This interview has been edited and condensed for flow and clarity.