By Matt Holland
For the Daily Titan

Musicians have been known to branch out into other art forms with various amounts of success. Anthrax guitarist and co-founder Scott Ian decided it was time to put down the guitar and get his hands on a computer keyboard to scribe DC Comics’ newest mini-series, Lobo: Highway to Hell. Ian recently sat down with fans at one of Los Angeles’ Meltdown Comics for an intimate Q&A and autograph session.

Lobo: Highway to Hell is a two-issue prestige format series chronicling DC Comics’ favorite alien bounty hunter as he goes fist-to-face with the Prince of Darkness himself, Satan, to seek vengeance for the innocent dolphins that Lucifer killed to send Lobo a message. The series is penciled by legendary comic book artist Sam Keith, creator of The Maxx, and clocks in at a whopping 64 pages per issue with a price tag of $6.99. Both issues are currently out at comic book stores everywhere. At this time, there are no plans to collect the two issues into one volume.

Fans seemed to be pretty excited for the new series. “I’m a huge Anthrax fan. I play guitar and look up to him. I really like comic books. He wrote a book and combined a lot of my interests, so I thought I’d check it out,” said Dean Karasinksi.

“It was kind of funny when I heard that Scott Ian was writing a comic. As a fan of Anthrax, I’ve been listening to his music for a long time, and he’s always had a kind of nerdy, geeky side to things. So when I heard that he was going to write a comic, I said, ‘Hey, that’s going to be fun,’ and the thing about Lobo, he’s pretty much the most metal character in all of DC (Comics). It’s a match made in Hell,” said Brett Parmenter, an avid comic book reader. “It’s really hilarious. And then Sam Keith, the artist, mixes it up right there. It’s a great book, and I’m glad he’s doing it.”

During the Q&A session, Ian touched on a number of topics. “Writing comics is something I could see myself doing longer than being in a band. I did learn one thing though: comic signings have way less people than band signings. But I don’t care, I wrote a comic, and I’m happy to be here,” Ian said.

Ian switched gears a bit to talk about music and the song writing process. “I feel like every song started about zombies. At one point, I thought this could be the soundtrack for World War Z or something. Our music sounds the way it sounds and inspires a certain way, and it usually inspires me to think of really violent stuff. I would say nine times out of 10, the songs come from fiction or fantasy thing(s).”

When looking for inspiration on writing, Ian said he looks up to “(Frank) Miller and (Alan) Moore. Being a kid in the ’70s, I grew up on Stan Lee writing comic books. For me, he’s probably one of the biggest influences on me as a person. More recently, I think (Robert) Kirkman is doing some of the best work. The Walking Dead is my favorite book.”

Not one to be considered a one-hit wonder, Ian is already planning his next project with DC Comics. “They already gave me the go ahead on my second project. I just can’t say who it is yet because they don’t want to announce it until after New Years. But it’s pretty much right up my alley. Although, it’s going to be way more difficult. There’s way more plot than the Lobo book. There’s going to be a lot more characters in it, at least 10 characters in the DC Universe.” When asked who he would like to collaborate with on a future comic book project, Ian said that he would love to work with painter Alex Ross. However, he is unsure if he’ll ever get the chance due to the artist’s incredibly busy schedule.