Warning: contains preview images for The Closet #1!
This summer, James Tynion IV will bring the horror comic The Closet to Image Comics, and Screen Rant has an exclusive first look. The series, described by the publisher as a “tale of familial existential horror,” was previously published online in Tynion’s Empire of the Tiny Onion newsletter on Substack, making this the series’ print debut. The first issue will be in stores on June 1.
James Tynion IV arrived on the scene nearly a decade ago, working with Scott Snyder on Batman before helping launch Talon. From there, Tynion has worked on a number of high profile books, such as Detective Comics and Batman for DC, as well as a number of highly successful creator-owned titles, such as The Woods, Something is Killing the Children, Department of Truth and The Nice House on the Lake. Tynion has won numerous awards for his books, including an Eisner as well as a GLAAD Media Award. Last year, Tynion walked away from an exclusive deal at DC Comics to launch a new line of creator-owned titles, released through the digital platform Substack. Among the first offerings from Tynion was Blue Book, documenting real UFO cases, as well as a Department of Truth spin-off.
Another initial offering, The Closet, is a three-issue miniseries written by Tynion and illustrated by Gavin Fullerton that starts when Thom moves his family across the country to Portland, Oregon, in an attempt to keep them from falling apart. On top of his unhappy home life, Thom’s young son Jamie insists there is a monster in his closet. The preview pages, shared below, show Thom in a state of quiet despair, drowning his troubles at the local bar. Readers see Thom’s domestic strife and meet young Jamie. Tynion and Fullerton focus on the humanity of not only Thom, but his wife and son as well; Thom wants to be a good father and before long, he will deal with monsters both in the closet and buried in the past.
"I’m absolutely thrilled to be bringing the first of the original comic series I've been publishing through my Substack to print," Tynion said. "The Closet is a personal horror story that's been living in the back of my head for a very long time, and I can't wait to introduce it to a larger audience."
Thanks to best-sellers such as Something is Killing the Children and The Woods, James Tynion IV has established himself as one of the torchbearers of 21st century horror comics. Tynion’s narratives are layered, his characters real and diverse and the horror is truly terrifying. The Closet looks to keep this streak going. In the preview pages provided, Tynion and Fullerton stress the humanity of the characters, but also imbue the scenes with a sense of creeping menace, that something horrifying is lurking, waiting for Thom in Portland. The tropes that Tynion and Fullerton are using in The Closet are well-established in the horror genre, with Fullerton commenting, "The set up of our story I'm sure will be familiar to many horror fans. A little boy is afraid of the monster in his closet. But also many horror fans will know that these familiar tropes are there to guide the audience into something much much deeper." It is not a stretch to see the monsters in Jamie’s closet as allegories for his father’s past—one that is sending them across country.
James Tynion IV rocked the comics world when he launched the Empire of the Tiny Onion Substack, giving him total creative freedom over his future projects. Now, thanks to Image Comics, his first release, The Closet, will be coming to a wider audience.