When Jeremy shared this piece of concept art with me, a couple of scenes for The Hollows popped fully-formed into my head.  When I was a kid, my parents collected antiques.  They had a wicked-looking scythe–just like the one Cole is holding here–hanging above the door between the family room and kitchen.  I was always terrified that the thing would come loose from the nails pinning it to the wall, and it would swing down and lop my precious noggin off.  Whenever I start writing a comic, I put a lot of thought into where a chainsaw will fit into the story.  But, really, who needs a chainsaw when you’ve got a kickass scythe?

During the Oni Press panel at Comic Con, Jeremy Haun and I announced our upcoming horror graphic novel. 

Set in the Missouri Ozarks town of Black Oak, The Hollows is a tale of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror.  Cole Harper, a struggling artist, returns to his boyhood home after almost thirty years to find that everything has changed for the much, much worse.  As the sinister force infecting the secluded town begins to spread, Cole is thrown headlong into a web of terror threatening to destroy his body … his mind … and his world. 

I’m writing, while the talented Mr. Haun will be handling the artwork.

Many people in the horror industry will say it’s impossible to produce a truly frightening horror comic (I’m looking at you, Nate Southard).  With this comic, we’re setting out to disprove this notion.  Not only are we doing everything in our power to make this book scary … We want it to be the most frightening comic in the last 15 years.  This is going to be a massive, bloody, balls-to-the-wall frightfest, and I couldn’t be more excited about writing it.

The Hollows will be published in 2009.  In the meantime, I’ll be posting art, snippets of script, behind the scenes commentary, and other related material as we work on bringing this thing to life.

Stay tuned.