Sympathetic Monsters

By Sam Costello

Sympathetic Monsters features interviews with 7 writers, artists, and musicians discussing fear—that oldest and strongest emotion of mankind, according to H.P. Lovecraft.

The book includes interviews with comics legend Bernie Wrightson (Swamp Thing, Frankenstein), writers Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and Sean T. Collins, writer/artists Eric Powell (The Goon) and Queenie Chan (The Dreaming), and musician John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Costello
• Release date: Aug 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465708922

Sam Costello

Sam Costello is a writer living in Providence, RI. His journalism has appeared in Rue Morgue, PC World, Cape Cod Magazine, CNN.com, and About.com, among others. His fiction has appeared in Punk Planet, Eschatology Journal, and After the End, a post-apocalyptic anthology from Static Movement. He is the creator and writer of Split Lip (www.splitlipcomic.com), the horror webcomics anthology that Comics Should Be Good called “the best horror anthology on the Internet.”

Book preview

Table of Contents

Preface

Bernie Wrightson, artist

Steve Niles, writer

Queenie Chan, writer/artist

Sean T. Collins, writer

Monique Motil, costumer designer/artist

Eric Powell, writer/artist

John Darnielle, musician

Sympathetic Monsters

conversations with writers, artists, and musicians about horror

By Sam Costello

The interviews in this collection originally appeared online at www.darkbutshining.com (now defunct), with the exception of the Monique Motil interview, which has not before been published in this form.

The interviews are © 2003, 2006, 2007 Sam Costello

Cover photo © istockphoto.com/123render

Sympathetic Monsters

Copyright Sam Costello 2011

Smashwords Edition

Preface

From 2005 to 2007, nearly the entirety of its lifespan, I wrote for one of the early group horror blogs, Dark But Shining (once located at

www.darkbutshining.com, but long since passed on to the happy hunting grounds). In that time, about nine regular bloggers—and numerous guests—produced nearly 1,000 posts. Included among them were these six interviews, interviews with some of the most interesting writers, thinkers, artists, and musicians working in horror then and now.

While some of the works that they mention are no longer current, their thoughts on fear—that oldest and strongest emotion of mankind, according to Lovecraft—still resonate for anyone interested in the darker side of art.

—Sam Costello

Bernie Wrightson, artist

Bernie Wrightson is one of the world’s greatest living horror comics artists, and almost unquestionably the greatest living horror artist in Western comics. Despite a career built on beautifully detailed depictions of monsters, madmen, and terror, he is also friendly and, well, just a really nice guy.

Wrightson, who is perhaps best known by many comics fans for his work with Len Wein on Swamp Thing or his stints working on shorts for the Warren Publishing titles Creepy and Eerie, took an extended break from comics work, spending his time on commercial and movie work.

He returned to comics in 2007, though, drawing the series City of Others, written by reigning horror champ Steve Niles and published by Dark Horse Comics. Since then he’s also drawn Dead, She Said (also written by Niles, but published by IDW) and announced plans to return to Frankenstein’s monster with Frankenstein Alive, Alive (again teaming with Niles and IDW).

This interview took place after the first issue of City of Others—about the world’s most perfect killer and his stumbling onto a much darker, more monster-filled world than he imagined existed— had been released, but before the second.

I called Wrightson at his studio in California.

Costello: How did working with Steve Niles come about?

Wrightson: Working with Steve Niles is an absolute dream. I have never had a creative partner like him before. This is just wonderful. We get together and talk about stories and plotting issues and things. It’s really like we’re sharing a brain.

The inversion of the man with two brains! What’s so different about this relationship? Is it that you guys are on the same wavelength, or is it something different about how you’re collaborating?

Steve has absolutely no ego. There’s no problem with him about letting me write, which I’ve never really had before. It’s always been a case of, I’m the artist, the writer is the writer, and we never crossed the line. With Steve it’s just total give and take. I’m having a hell of a time. It’s terrific.

How much writing are you doing on this series?

I don’t know if you could really quantify it. We’ll talk about an issue and Steve will make a lot of notes. Then he gives me a script. Then I thumbnail the script; I just do a lot of rewriting and maybe changing, maybe adding some things or taking some things out, and I give it back to Steve and then he rewrites that. Then I get that back and I rewrite it again. It just goes back and forth until we’re both happy with it.

I saw a video on