Written By:Joshua Pantalleresco
Welcome to the (official) first column of Re-ignition. This is a column about discovering and rediscovering the passion of this great hobby. Comics have been an important part of my life ever since I was eight years old. I’ve always been grateful for the things comics have given me, and intend to repay in kind.

One of the biggest misconceptions with comics is that they are just superhero stories. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading about the men in tights as much as anyone else. Superheroes do have a place and as a concept, rock. That said there are so many different kinds of books out there. To say that superheroes are all there is would ill serve the industry. Each one of my columns will have themes that tie in to what I’m talking about.

This week’s theme is horror. Now there are many different kinds of horror out there. There are the classic monster horror stories. There are also the blood and gore fest kind of stories out there. Both of these are cool, but I found personally that my favorite section of horror wasn’t the blood and gore, but rather the psychological kind of horror.

Psychological horror in my view is the kind of story that reflects the world in a distorted yet often terrifying way – often twisted morality tales are the result. It gives us pause, and frightens us because deep down you can imagine such a place or a person or a time, and it gives you pause when you do this. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the best at it. A lot of his films mastered the art of making you imagine the scene that was occurring – it was often more shocking then ever seeing it on the screen.

Those are the kinds of horror that give me chills and make me pause. Yet no matter which genre of horror you like, comics have a rich vein of history for it all. In fact, comics were arguably at their creative best in this genre, going back to the EC Comics days. What is EC Comics? Glad you asked.

Rekindled Finds

EC Comics was a horror based comic company who published some of the most compelling stories of their time. Using talents such as Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, Harvey Kurtzman and others, the comics line produced some ground breaking and memorable stuff that still impacts comics today.

Tales From the Crypt always welcomed you with the host of the series, the cryptkeeper, who would use a variety of puns and insulted readers to add a little levity between tales. As for the stories themselves? Twisted and ironic. More often then not, the protagonist would meet an ironic fate. Other common themes included readapting fairy tales. One of my personal favorites was “The Sleeping Beauty” (Issue 39).

Unfortunately, comics at the time were under heavy scrutiny and the comics code proved to be EC Comics doom. The company continued to do well with MAD magazine. Tales from the Crypt began with issue 17 and lasted until issue 54. You can still buy reprints of this series at gemstone books.

I think every comic fan should at least glance at these works of art. The stories were amazing, but the art was truly ahead of its time. If you have the bucks, they are worth at least a glance.

Another common theme for EC was adapting stories by an author named Ray Bradbury, which I found to be ironic, as my first review is a Bradbury story. Ray Bradbury is noted as a science fiction writer; the truth is that Ray was a masterful storyteller, and quite often his stories would transcend any genre. His imagination was incredible.

I remember reading this novel as a kid, and it terrified me. I could see this world so vividly. It made me question the world and made me think about it in a way I never saw before. For me at least, there has been no greater horror than this graphic novel I’m about to review.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Tim Hamilton

So last week, I find this in the comic shop and I know I must own it. I confess to being a huge Ray Bradbury fan, and this book faithfully adapts my favorite novel. This to date, is the only book that ever scared me. For those of you unaware, Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a fireman named Guy Montag, who starts fires instead of fights them. He burns books because that is how the cities function.

One night he talks to a girl named Clarisse and realizes that he isn’t happy. Curious, he picks up a book and starts reading. Guy realizes that he isn’t happy, and finds himself alone in a place where everyone is told what to think and what to say. This is a world without reading. Looking back, I see why this book scared me so much; I think this world can very easily come to be.

From the opening page Tim Hamilton captures the mood of this story perfectly. His colours in particular capture the emotion of the story. I love the blues when Clarisse and Guy talk. I love the black and orange flame that seems to surround the firemen when they play poker. Or when Beatty, the antagonist of the story, tries to push and prod Montag at his new discovery. Hamilton is incredibly talented. Hamilton makes the world of Fahrenheit 451 dark and creepy – a surreal mirror to our own.

Ray Bradbury provides the introduction and the dialogue. It feels just like the novel I read when I was 15. It was both new and old. I find myself asking the same questions I did when I was a kid, and find that after all this time, this book is still amazing. I can’t recommend it enough.

Fahrenheit 451 is available at your local comic shop now.

Finally, we live behind crypts and burning books, and arrive in a world where Armageddon is right around the corner. I’ve been a fan of this series for years now, and hope that it continues growing. Nightmare World is horror done right, and I for one hope it continues to find success. Here is an interview with the creator of Nightmare World: Dirk Manning.

Nightmare Come True: Nightmare World has arrived.

If you’ve ever been to Newsarama, you’ve had a chance to read Dirk Manning’s Column Write or Wrong. I enjoyed the column as a guy in a top hat in glasses gave advice about breaking into comics, all the while promoting his very cool Nightmare World series on his website. Curious, I checked it out. What I found as I read each story was some very well crafted tales that were reminiscent of Tales from the Crypt with a modern edge to them. Some of the tales were funny, others horrifying – each one reflecting a corner of our world in unique and challenging ways – something good horror always does.

After years of struggle, Shadowline is finally releasing these tales in Trade Paperback. The first book entitled “13 Tales of Terror” hits comic shops this October. I had a chance to chat with Dirk about his success and achievement.

Joshua Pantalleresco: We’ve talked about NIGHTMARE WORLD before, but can you give readers a quick recap of what the series is about?

Dirk Manning: NIGHTMARE WORLD is a series of seemingly stand-alone genre-hopping supernatural/thriller stories (think “The Twilight Zone” if you need a frame of reference) that, when read collectively, all slowly intertwine to tell one massive uber-story about – among other things – Lucifer’s grand plan to use Cthulhu and some other influential monsters and demons as part of his final strike against God.

Honestly, though, that uber-plot is secondary to how all of these stories can (and should) be read as stand-alone tales of terror about everything from romantic ghosts to vengeful fairy lovers to slasher-pic parodies to samurais fighting ninjas to sexy Cthulhu priestesses to frontier-style justice in space to, well, just about everything in-between. Variety and high standards of quality entertainment are the spices of life in NIGHTMARE WORLD. [laughs]

JP: Now the book is making the jump from online to print. Can you describe some of the ups and downs publishing your own creation in comics?

DM: Sure! I mean, after all, NIGHTMARE WORLD is an overnight success seven years in the making. [laughs]

We started as exclusively an online web comic series back in 2002, and over the years I dabbled in self-publishing and even worked with a few smaller “indie publishers” in order to collect the series in print.

While they were all great (or at least valuable) learning experiences, I ultimately learned that if I was to ever properly take NIGHTMARE WORLD to print it would either have to be through self-publishing or through Image Comics. Period.

The Image guys were really the pioneers of high-profile self-publishing in comics (along with a few other notable creators such as Jeff Smith, Terry Moore and Dave Sim, of course)… and because of this Image Comics really stands as “thee” publisher for creators like me who want to do something new without sacrificing quality, content or – most importantly – my ownership of the property itself.

Luckily, though, when Jim Valentino and Kris Simon of Image Comics’ Shadowline imprint started their web comic hub they invited NIGHTMARE WORLD to join the party, and that was really a game-changer for me. I was on the verge of going strictly to self-publishing on my own with a few friends, but being affiliated with Image/Shadowline is the best-case scenario for me. As cheesy as this sounds, it’s literally a dream come true to have by work now being released side-by-side with the works of creators like Robert Kirkman and Frank Cho among countless other amazing “do-it-yourself” guys and gals who I’ve looked-up to for years.

JP: What Nightmare World stories will be included in the first trade?

DM: As the title says, this first collection will have 13 of the best-received stories from the online series as we’ve run it at Shadowline to date, including “The Same Deep Water As You,” “Violet,” “Life in a Glass House,” “You Oughta Know,” “Bitter Wine,” “Break Stuff,” “Knee Deep in the Dead,” “Try Honesty” and “Mine” among others.

Basically we’re trying to balance between some of the more seemingly stand-alone stories and a couple of them that pretty blatantly give hints as to the big uber-story about how Lucifer has decided to use Cthulhu to kick-start the Armageddon in his final assault against God.

Considering this, people who pick-up the first collection will get a lot of cool “stand alone” stories… but then by the time they finish the book they’ll hopefully go “Hey… wait a minute… a lot of these stories are trying together!” and then go back and find it worthy of multiple re-readings in order to connect the dots.

Then, if all goes according to plan there will be three more similar TPB collections of 13 more stories each collecting the whole series in a similar format.

JP: So you said there could be four trades total. Will we be seeing the rest of the series collected anytime soon?

DM: That’s a perfect case scenario, yeah, but first I want to make sure that we sell enough copies of NIGHTMARE WORLD “Thirteen Tales of Terror” Vol. 1 so that it’s justifiable to do a second, third and finally forth collection. I would love to see the whole series collected in print in TPB form, of course, and I would imagine everyone who reads the series would too… so the key is PRE-ORDERING the book through your local comic shop or Amazon.com.

We’re in the current issue of PREVIEWS on p155 (Order Code: AUG09-0327) and the book is also now available for pre-order through www.Amazon.com  by searching “NIGHTMARE WORLD MANNING”… so anyone who eventually wants to see the whole series of all 52 in print (along with three more prose stories, more re-mastered art and other cool bonuses) should pre-order. Pre-ordering is the key!

JP: What are some of the cool bonuses in NIGHTMARE WORLD: “Thirteen Tales of Terror” Volume One you can tell us about?

DM: For starters, the art for “You Oughta Know” has been completely re-mastered for this collection. Ray Dillon of Golden Goat Studios (who himself is a multiple-time contributor to NIGHTMARE WORLD) inked and colored Jeff Welborn’s original pencils exclusively for the print collection – and our resident Cthulhu Cult priestess Vanessa has never looked so good as a result! [laughs]

Additionally, since we’re going to print we went back and tweaked some of the art from some of the earlier stories a little more in subtle ways that will really add a lot to “the uber-story” that connects all of the individual tales of terror together… but you’ll have to get the print edition to see how. It’s subtle, but it’s there and the collection reads even better as a result.

Aside from all of that coolness, NIGHTMARE WORLD: “13 Tales of Terror” Vol. 1 will also feature nicely framed full-sized editions of each story’s original cover, a gorgeous painted cover by fantasy artist Kristen Perry, a really cool introduction by REX MUNDI author Arvid Nelson and some other additional exclusive treats reserved just for people who pick-up the trade…. such as a brand-new in-continuity prose story written by me.

Basically, we’re going out of our way to jam this thing to the gills to make it the coolest reading experience possible.

JP: About your prose story, can you give away a little about it?

DM: Yeah! I just finished the last draft of it the other day and Josh Ross sent me a cool spot illustration to go with it. It’s called “The Long, Hard Road Out of Hell” and it lets us see inside Lucifer’s head as his plan for how to free himself from Hell finally crystallized in his mind.

I have to admit, too, that while Lucifer has always been one of my favorite characters to write in NIGHTMARE WORLD, it was really hard for me to “get in his head” to write this story. I mean, his intentions, motives and tactics are all pretty obvious… but to actually get into his thought-process took me a lot of time and several false-starts.

Finally, I went back and re-read all of the stories he’s featured in throughout NIGHTMARE WORLD (including several that haven’t been released yet) and, weirdly enough, it was when I re-read “Mine” that it finally “clicked” for me and I got in the groove.

The end result is a very cool story that really lays bare Lucifer’s true plans and intentions for all to see, including a few neat little tidbits that I think will surprise even the most die-hard readers who think they’ve got it all figured out. [laughs]

JP: Is there a chance of any of the covers being made into art prints? Some of them would make great posters.

DM: I’m glad you mentioned the covers, man, because the covers to the NIGHTMARE WORLD stories are a real point of pride to me. Not only has Kristen Perry done amazing work on the cover to the first collection, but the various artists and I put a lot of work each individual story’s cover to really make them all pop. In fact, more often than not each story’s cover also serves as the “last panel” to the story itself. Once people realize this it oftentimes puts stories like “Violet” into a whole new light! [laughs]

As for art prints or posters, though, I think it’s only a matter of time before I release a really snazzy art print or poster of the TPB cover, at least. I’ve teased about releasing that image as a poster for years, and I know that Kristen Perry has sold art prints of it herself here and there over the years when she’s done signings – but I think come October we’re going to have to do something official and release a really kick-ass poster version of the girl in the boat. It’s time. [laughs]

JP: What were some of the challenges bringing the whole series to print? What has made this edition possible compared to some of the other publishers in the past?

DM: Honestly, there were no real difficulties in bringing this edition to print through Shadowline once we started running the series at the Shadowline Web comics hub (http://www.shadowlinecomics.com/webcomics/#/nightmareworld ) and were able to “show” that people liked the comic enough to support going to print with it.

Once we started pulling good numbers of daily/weekly hits it was just a matter of Kris, Jim and I deciding which thirteen stories would be in the first (and hopefully not last) collection… and even that was a fairly painless process. What’s interesting is that with a series like NIGHTMARE WORLD everybody has different favorite stories, but we were all able to decide on which thirteen to include in a fairly drama-free fashion.

JP: Why a trade format and not a miniseries?

DM: Honestly, aside from maybe doing fairly inexpensive “flip-books” all I’ve ever wanted to do is a collection of four nice, bookshelf-worthy TPB collections that would collect the whole series in print.

I mean, let’s be real here: NIGHTMARE WORLD is already available for free online at the Shadowline web comics hub, and while that’s cool, there are also a lot of people who want a version of the series in print that they can hold in their hand and presumably read in the bathroom without having to lug their laptop in there.

Considering this, the last thing I want to do is triple-dip on my readers by putting out a mini-series and then recollecting it in a TPB format. If the series wasn’t already available online I would definitely consider doing that, but all I’ve ever wanted to do was put the series online, maybe release some cool little “flip-book editions” of some of the stories (something I did in my self-publishing days) and then do a nice, definitive bookshelf TPB edition for people to love and cherish forever.

Times are tough and money is tight for everyone right now, and providing a great book with a low-price-point was something Jim, Kris and I all agreed upon from the get-go. Considering this, I’m really pleased about how the NIGHTMARE WORLD collection has come together as a package. It’s going to be a really cool treat for old and new readers alike.

JP: Finally, now that you’ve hit print, what is the best advice you can give to anyone attempting to travel the same road you have?

DM: I discuss a lot of my own experiences – warts and all – and also give a lot of advice in my column “WRITE OR WRONG” over at www.Newsarama.com , and since I get this question a lot I’m also going to move towards taking that collection of columns to print in the next year, I think.

The biggest tips I can give, though, are these: Treat your collaborators fairly and don’t rely on publishers to give you your first break. Like I said at the beginning of this interview, it took me seven years to get to Image Comics – and that was seven years of me (and the artists) slaving away at the original NIGHTMARE WORLD web comic on a daily basis… and when I say daily basis, I mean that LITERALLY.

What burns my biscuits are people who think they whip together a comic, put it online and then have publishers come knocking at their door. The real world is not “Field of Dreams,” folks. [laughs]

With the glory of the Internet and programs such as Wordpress/Comicpress it’s now easier than ever to publish finished comics online – and certainly much easier to do so than when I got started – but that doesn’t mean that you still don’t have to bust your butt to get noticed.

The key is consistency, quality, courteousness in all aspects of your comic book creation and promotion. If you do those three things you’ll be a lot farther ahead than those people who don’t adhere to those three guidelines.

And that will do it. I hope you enjoyed this oddyssee into horror, and I for one hope you come back next time when I talk about children’s fiction. Until then, keep chasing your passions.

That will do it this week. Email me at wandererofthoughts@yahoo.ca  or visit me at http://jpantalleresco.livejournal.com  for comments, questions, a book you wish reviewed, or anything for that matter. I’m also on http://www.facebook.com/joshua.pantalleresco  and http://twitter.com/jpantalleresco  as well.

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