Trick or Treat Month: PREVIEWSworld's Halloween Interviews

Once again, PREVIEWSworld goes all out to celebrate Halloween…in July! Why? Well, we have to offer stuff in July so that it can get to the stores in time for Halloween. That’s why! Stores get stocked with stuff in September, and then you’re free to grab up the goodies early so that you have plenty of time for tricks and treats. Speaking of treats, we’ve collected here for you a bunch of Halloween/horror-themed interviews that will help you tip-toe through the tombstones! Enjoy!

Eric Powell

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

Eric Powell: I’m Eric Powell. Our company is Albatross Funnybooks. We are best known for the Hillbilly series (Vol. 1 / JAN171227) and creating socially awkward situations.

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror properties are you working on right now?

Eric Powell: Spook House 2! It’s a new four-part weekly sequel to our all-ages horror anthology (Vol. 1 / AUG171134).

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why?

Eric Powell: The Frankenstein Monster is definitely my favorite! I love tragic monsters and especially the original Universal Karloff design.

PREVIEWSworld: What is your horror “white whale”? What horror character or crossover would you love to create a comic series about?

Eric Powell: It seems like every possible license in pop culture has been mined at this point. So, I don’t think there are many horror-related properties that haven’t been done.

For comic book characters, I think I could do a good job on Jack Kirby’s The Demon (JUL170472) if I could take the book back to its roots of being a big monster comic. But that contingency also guarantees it will never happen.

HILLBILLY TP VOL 01 (JAN171227)	SPOOKHOUSE TP VOL 01 (AUG171134)

W. Maxwell Prince

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

W. Maxwell Prince: I’m W. Maxwell Prince, and I currently write Ice Cream Man for Image Comics. Folks might also remember me from One Week in the Library (SEP160780) or The Electric Sublime (JAN170571).

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror titles are you working on right now and how would you describe them to fans looking for an eerie read this Halloween season?

W. Maxwell Prince: Ice Cream Man (Vol. 1: Rainbow Sprinkles / APR180546) is an anthology series of “one-shots.” The stories in each issue have no clear link to each other, save for a magical-ish Ice Cream Man that pops up in all of them.

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why? Did they influence or inspire your own approach to character development in Horror?

W. Maxwell Prince: I think my favorite horrific figure would have to be “Edgar” from the first Men in Black movie. Ain’t nothin’ scarier than a bug walking around in an “Egger suit”!

PREVIEWSworld: What is something you hope to accomplish with your Horror storytelling?

W. Maxwell Prince: My biggest hope is to make sad stories. If those stories also happen to be horrific, I’ll chalk it up to some sort of overlap between despair and fear — which sounds about right to me.

ONE WEEK I/T LIBRARY GN (SEP160780)	ICE CREAM MAN TP VOL 01 (APR180546)	ELECTRIC SUBLIME TP (JAN170571)

Pornsak Pichetshote

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

Pornsak Pichetshote: I’m Pornsak Pichetshote and I'm probably best known at this point as the writer for Image Comics’ horror book Infidel (Vol. 1 / JAN188523) as well as being a DC/Vertigo editor on such comics as Swamp Thing, Hellblazer: Pandemonium, The Unwritten, Daytripper, and Sweet Tooth.

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror titles are you working on right now and how would you describe them to fans looking for an eerie read this Halloween season?

Pornsak Pichetshote: I’m currently putting the finishing touches on the last issue of Infidel. We call it a “haunted house story for the new millennium”. It’s about an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who live in an apartment building haunted by strange entities fueled by xenophobia. It mixes contemporary politics with horror which has earned us a comparison to Get Out. We’ve also gotten praise from comics horror pros like Jock, Steve Niles, Josh Fialkov, and Mike Carey; pretty much unanimously great reviews from all the major comics sites; and a movie option from Tristar.

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why? Did they influence or inspire your own approach to character development in Horror?

Pornsak Pichetshote: My favorite horror character is Swamp Thing (Saga of… Vol. 1 / JAN120343), at least when Alan Moore was writing him. Probably less because of the character, though, and more because all horror comic writers owe a debt to the way Moore revisited and re-energized horror tropes. Although probably the biggest influence to my approach on horror comics is manga artist Junji Ito, and my favorite work of his is Uzumaki (3-in-1 Edition / AUG131498). Uzumaki is on my list for scariest horror comic and if you pick it up, you can most definitely see the influence he’s had on Infidel.

PREVIEWSworld: What is something you hope to accomplish with your Horror storytelling?

Pornsak Pichetshote: I’m desperately trying to make readers as uncomfortable as I am when I’m reading those best moments of Ito’s Uzumaki or Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. My goal is to get you to really feel invested and relate to my characters, so that when the horrors come, it hits that much closer to home. But also, I don’t want you to stop seeing horrors when you look away from the pages of the book. I want the themes of the work to affect you enough that it makes you look at the uncomfortable things in the world too.

INFIDEL TP (JAN188523)	UZUMAKI 3-IN-1 ED. (AUG131498)	SAGA O/T SWAMP THING TP BOOK 01 (JAN120343)

Sean Lewis

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

Sean Lewis: I am Sean Lewis, the writer and co-creator of Saints: The Book of Blaise (JUN160699), The Few (JUN170653), and Coyotes (JAN180663), all with Image Comics.

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror titles are you working on right now and how would you describe them to fans looking for an eerie read this Halloween season?

Sean Lewis: Coyotes is an allegory about a group of women hunted by werewolves along the Mexican border. When they discover the wolves are men from their town, they kick a large revenge plot into gear.

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why? Did they influence or inspire your own approach to character development in Horror?

Sean Lewis: I always had a soft spot for Michael Meyers from John Carpenter’s Halloween. I remember watching it at home as a kid and freaking out. He hasn't influenced this book but I'm sure down the line he is bound to.

PREVIEWSworld: What is something you hope to accomplish with your Horror storytelling?

Sean Lewis: I'm always interested in how you can use horror to talk about everyday fears. People are so angry and divided these days that horror seems to be the only way to discuss politics and terror in a way that people will just engage with without losing their mind immediately.

COYOTES TP VOL 01 (JAN180663)	SAINTS BOOK O/BLAISE TP (JUN160699)	THE FEW TP (JUN170653)

Cullen Bunn

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

Cullen Bunn: I’m Cullen Bunn, and I write several creator-owned horror or horror-themed comics — Regression (Vol. 1: Way Down Deep / SEP170659) and Cold Spots (Issue #1 / JUN180044) for Image, Harrow County (Vol. 1 Library Ed. / JUN180372) and Death Follows (JAN160137) for Dark Horse, The Sixth Gun (Vol. 1 DLX Ed. / JUN131225) and The Damned (Vol. 1: Three Days Dead / NOV161703) for Oni Press, and Bone Parish (Issue #1 / MAY181178) and The Empty Man (MAY151111) for BOOM! Studios. I also write X-Men and Deadpool stories aplenty for Marvel.

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror titles are you working on right now and how would you describe them to fans looking for an eerie read this Halloween season?

Cullen Bunn: Cold Spots is my latest horror book. It’s a creepy, gothic, cosmic story of a missing girl and a man’s efforts to find her. The problem is, where the girl goes, ghosts grow restless, and these ghosts seem to sap the warmth out of the air around them. Believe me, the story gets very, very cold!

Regression is a series that’s in full swing right now, and it is absolutely bonkers! It’s a horror story that (I hope) will really mess with your mind. It’s the story about a past-life regression gone horribly, horribly wrong. My dad was a hypnotist who did regressions, and I drew on a lot of my experiences there.

Bone Parish is a supernatural crime story set in New Orleans. It follows a family that is trying to make it in the drug trade. The drug they are selling? It’s made from the ashes of the dead, and users get to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes when they try it.

I just wrapped up Harrow County, but I highly suggest looking into the trade paperbacks or library edition hardcovers! Harrow County is the story of a young woman who lives out in the country, and she’s just discovered that she might very well be the reincarnation of an infamous witch!

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why? Did they influence or inspire your own approach to character development in Horror?

Cullen Bunn: Oh, wow! There are so, so many. In movies, we’ve got Reggie the ice cream man from Phantasm. I like how badly he’s in over his head. I also like Michael Myers from Halloween, because he terrified me when I was a kid. Dallas from Alien is also a favorite doomed character. In fiction, I love Danny Torrance from Stephen King’s The Shining and its sequel, Doctor Sleep. In comics, I love so many horror heroes — Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, Scare Tactics, Etrigan, Klarion, Constantine, Werewolf by Night. The list goes on and on!

I certainly pull inspiration from everything I read and watch. I love how so many different characters can interact with these horrors in different ways. In fright... with humor... serious... bumbling... and when done right the dichotomy can make for some exciting and terrifying tale.

PREVIEWSworld: What is something you hope to accomplish with your Horror storytelling?

Cullen Bunn: My horror work in comics is very deliberate and methodical. I tend to focus on building a mood rather than going for a jump scare or an awful bloodletting. I want readers to be invested in the characters. I want them to be immersed in the story. Then I want to hit them with a terrifying whammy. I want readers to be entertained and afraid when they read a horror book. That’s the name of the game, after all!

HARROW COUNTY VOL 01 (JUN180372)	REGRESSION VOL. 1 (SEP170659)

Eric Esquivel

PREVIEWSworld: Introductions, please!

Eric Esquivel: I’m Eric Esquivel, and I work at Starburns Industries (or "Estarburns", for our Spanish speaking friends), a Willy-Wonky-style magic factory in Burbank, California that is responsible for all your favorite stuff — like Rick and Morty, Community, and Gregory Graves (Vol. 1 / MAY181985)!

PREVIEWSworld: Which horror properties are you working on right now?

Eric Esquivel: Fantasmagoría (See Page 409!) is a quarterly horror anthology that is similar to stuff like Black Mirror, Tales from the Crypt, and The Twilight Zone — but it's unique in that it deals exclusively with mythology that is native to Mexico, and the American Southwest.

Basically, they're dramatic retellings of stories that our creepy abuelitas used to traumatize us with when we were niños!

PREVIEWSworld: Who is your favorite horror character, and why?

Eric Esquivel: Show me a Chicano kid who isn't scared s***less of “El Cucuy”, and I will show you a liar! He's basically the south-of-the-border Boogeyman — only there aren't any Tim Burton movies or Halloween costumes featuring him — so when you're a kid, he seems like something that could actually exist!

PREVIEWSworld: What is your horror white whale? What horror character or crossover would you love to create a comic series about?

Eric Esquivel: It's funny you used the term "white whale", because Horror as a genre is a pretty exclusively Caucasian affair... with the notable exception of Blackula!

And I don't want to debate whether that's racist, or whatever — but it's for sure BORING. Pop culture uses the same three Eastern European myths over, and over, and over again: Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghosts.

I'm hip. I worked at Hot Topic for five years… Vampires are rad. But you know what's also rad? Los Duendes! El Chupacabra! La Santa Muerte! There's a whole host of creepy weirdos out there, waiting to scare the living crap out of you. And it's an honor and a privilege for us to introduce them to you!

FANTASMAGORÍA (JUL182148)	GREGORY GRAVES (MAY181985)