The forces of horror continue to take over DC Comics -- well, at least the pages of their latest horror imprint, Hill House Comics. With skin-crawling series like The Dollhouse Family and Basketful of Heads off and running, the time has come for Carmen Maria Machado and Dani's The Low, Low Woods #1 to offer their own brand of unsettling, sinister satisfaction. Having read the first issue, and after discussing the series with its creators, it's an understatement to call this tale 'one to keep you up at night.'
Set among the perfectly titled backdrop of Shudder-To-Think, Pennsylvania, The Low, Low Woods takes place in a town that has been burning from within for years. Literally. The once bustling coal mines are smoldering, the woods are full of skinless men and antlered women, and that's not even the most horrifying part. When teens El and Octavia awaken in a movie theater with no memory of the past few hours, they realize the time has come for them to join the other women in their troubled town's tradition. Screen Rant had the opportunity to speak with award-winning and bestselling horror writer Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) and artist Dani (Girl With No Name), to find out what kind of horrors await. The full interview can be read below.
Could you tell me a little about how this story first began to take shape, if it preceded the arrival of Joe Hill with the Hill House Comics imprint, and how that process set you on the track of bringing The Low, Low Woods to life?
Carmen Maria Machado: So a couple years ago I had this idea for what I thought was maybe a young adult novel. And I had sort of sketched out just some world stuff, and some character stuff. Which for me is unusual, usually when I start writing I write pages. But I was like, 'I feel like I could set it in this fictional version of Centralia.' And I had this image for the two protagonists. Then it never went anywhere, so I just had this file sitting on my computer. Then last year DC reached out to me, then Vertigo, saying, 'We really love your work, we were wondering if you wanted to do a comic with us?' And I was like, 'Well I know nothing about comic writing [Laughs], but I'm interested! I love comics, I love graphic novels. So they said, 'Cool, pitch us anything you want.' So I was digging through my files and I found this and thought, 'I could see that being a graphic series. And it would be really visually beautiful, and I don't have any pages so it's not like I have to convert anything into a script, I can just write it. And I pitched it and they were really into it, and thus it was born.
Dani: You didn't expect it to be a comic?!
CMM: No! I mean I hadn't really ever thought I would write a comic. But it ended up working out really, really well. It's like it was meant to be. but I didn't plan it that way, for sure.
D: Well I'm glad it ended up like this! I saw these drafts, the visuals that Carmen mentioned. And then [Editors Amedeo Turturro and Mark Doyle] knew that I would like to draw something like that, and they were developing this story. So I was really excited to find all these things, and really liked it, and started working on it with them.
You mentioned that the project was with Vertigo at the time. But that ended up shifting into not just DC Black Label but a pop-up horror imprint from Joe Hill. That sounds like it would be more of a team sport than most writers are used to.
CMM: Yeah! That's sort of what's funny. The process is just really different, it's totally different than prose writing. There is more collaboration than I would've expected. Or that I was used to. For prose writing you're alone a lot, and then eventually you give it to somebody and they're like, 'Cool,' you know? [Laughs] There is a back and forth, but it's not the same. So then they were like, 'We actually want to bring Joe Hill in who is looking for ideas for this imprint.' I had briefly met Joe because he had edited a Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy I had been in a couple of years before that, and I had met him at a signing in New York. I love Joe's work, I love his whole thing, he's great, I'm really into this idea of this imprint... But it is definitely a more collaborative process than I think a lot of prose writers are used to. But it's actually kind of whet my appetite for it, honestly. And made me think about other more collaborative writing genres, which is exciting.
D: Yeah, this is nice with comics. Because you have something in your mind, then you talk about it with the rest of the team and something else pops up, and you just take it from there. It's like evolving all the time. I don't know if you feel like that, but...
CMM: Yeah, totally! Dani is sending beautiful illustrations and I'm like, 'Oh my God!' It's in my head, but it's on the page, and then I get ideas from the way that she draws it. It's really... It's so different than I'm used to, but I love it! I really, really love it.
D: What is interesting with comic scripts is that when you're reading it, it's like you are reading something beautiful. Seriously. The reader will get to read the dialogue, but everything that is behind... it's in a word that will never get to the final print. But I will read it. It's inspiring. It's all about the work behind.
What was the process like for each of you in conceiving and creating the setting for this story. The perfectly named Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania. A location that the curator of Hill House comics, Joe Hill refers to as "a place where skinless men and antlered women walk the woods, and reality is falling in on itself."
CMM: Well I had kind of a challenge in that. It's sort of loosely based on Centralia, Pennsylvania, which is a very real place. But I also wanted to make it my own. And I needed to create the feel of central PA, which is a pretty distinct aesthetic. So I sent Dani a lot of photos...
D: They were really helpful!
CMM: Because in my head I can visualize it as clear as day, but obviously the challenge is that I'm not drawing it. Thank goodness Dani is.
D: [Laughs]
CMM: So I had to convey that to her. So I look up lots of photos, and was like, 'Imagine the streets this way, and the buildings are like this. And it's sort of dilapidated in this way, but sort of charming, but also falling apart, and also it's on fire...' All these weird details. Lots of pictures to get at the feeling, and then she was sending me these drawings that were exactly what I was thinking. so thank you!
D: That's a challenge as an artist! Getting into the writer's mind, and feeling the visual, the idea behind everything.
Yeah, I almost can't tell if this town is dying or surviving. But you start this story so strongly by anchoring it in... I can't think of another way of saying it, but this story begins so 'in their bodies' from the very first page. It's where the mystery, and the horror, and the story starts. I don't want to call it 'body horror,' but what is it about this kind of horror that was the real spark for you?
CMM: The idea that I had started with many years ago, again back before it was a comic, was that I had a dream about basically the central idea. That first scene where they're in the theater. I had a dream where that happened to me. And I don't often write from my dreams, because usually my dreams are pretty nonsensical. They sound interesting in the moment but don't translate to writing. However I woke up and was very disturbed by the dream, and I wrote it down.
I was thinking a lot about setting, and I'm really interested in things that happen in theaters. I have a short story coming out next year that is set in the Grand Guignol in Paris in the thirties. So I'm interested in theaters and the space of real things happening parallel to, or outside of the performance. This just tapped into so many things that really upset me and disturbed me, and became the central idea. That was what I was working from, so I feel like... saying, 'What was that?' I don't know, it was a dream I had. It was something my brain gave me. Thanks brain.
The idea of not even what horrors are being visited upon these women, but that they don't even know what horrors are being visited on them is such a vivid kind of horror. Is that going to be the tone of horror readers can expect more of?
CMM: Yeah, I think so. I hope so! [Laughs]
D: We'll do our best!
I have to ask you Dani, there are moments and expressions that come across so perfectly well... But the story stops to get specific moments and images across that are so haunting. You are the reason they are stuck in my mind's eye, so is that process as rewarding for you to come up with and create -- like the antlered woman -- as it is to enjoy reading it?
D: Yeah, of course! If the artist and creator doesn't enjoy what they're doing, then it won't come across to the readers. So it's really inspiring getting these scripts and reading them, all these images just appear. Working on it... I don't know how to express it actually, but in the end every time I finish a drawing and an issue, it is really rewarding to see what we've done together, and how it comes to life. It's magic.
I know you won't brag about your own writing or artwork, so I'll give you an opportunity to compliment your creative partners here. What can the writer say about the artwork in store for readers? And what can the artist warn readers about with the rest of this story?
D: I feel so lucky that I read these. I wish our readers could read them, but... it's just for me! What do you think?
CMM: I feel like so much of this comic is about longing, adolescence, and desire. There is so much sensuality in tandem with the horror, and I feel like Dani's art is really capturing that. And also the colorist, and everything that is coming together. I love getting pages and feeling like... there is something about it that feels so horrifying and beautiful at the same time. Which I feel is what adolescence is like. Queer adolescence, especially. It feels so perfect. Even if I could have imagined images, they wouldn't have been as good as what Dani did. It captures that dichotomoy of horror and beauty so perfectly, I can't imagine them looking any other way.
The Low, Low Woods #1 will arrive at your local comic book shop on December 18th, 2019. In the meantime, readers can find the official plot synopsis for the series below:
Shudder-To-Think, PA, has been on fire for years. The coal mines beneath it are long since abandoned. The woods are full of rabbits with human eyes, a deer woman who stalks hungry girls, and swaths of skinless men. And the people in Shudder-to-Think? Well, they're not doing so well either. When El and Octavia wake up in a movie theater with no memory of the last few hours of their lives, the two teenage dirtbags begin a surreal and terrifying journey to discover the truth about the strange town that they call home. DC and Hill House Comics present the comics debut of award-winning, bestselling horror writer Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties, In the Dream House). THE LOW, LOW WOODS explores body horror down paths yet unexplored in comics. It will leave readers searching for their way back home and terrified of what they find changed upon their return.