CREEPSHOW WEEK!
KEEP IT FED Issue #5, Vol.2
We're back!
And we have a lot of things on the 2024 calendar so get ready for a full year of newsletters, new announcements, and new books! And it all starts with the January 17th release of CREEPSHOW Issue #5 and our story KEEP IT FED!
You’ll have to excuse us because before we really dig into the creation of the story and some of its finer points, we’re first going to take a moment to revel in this achievement…
DB: How huge is it to have a fucking Skybound credit?!?
TD: I’m turning this question around on you, because I know it meant a lot to you. But before I do, I’ve got to say, Creepshow #5 Vol.2 with Skybound is a career highlight! Jim Valentino’s Shadowline was where I started in comics, both designing and later writing Enormous. Almost simultaneously, I started working with Robert Kirkman as Skybound started to take shape. To go back so to speak, with Creepshow and to Skybound no less, is truly like going home. Skybound is in many respects responsible for our having met and being the catalyst for the career we now share.
So, tell me—how fucking huge is it to have that Skybound credit?
DB: Well, Skybound is the reason that I restarted reading comics after a decade of not. 2010-ish I got the opportunity to volunteer at the Skybound booth at SDCC and since I wanted to do a good job, I caught up on all the Walking Dead and Invincible I could. Talk about an amazing reintroduction to comics! With volunteering for Skybound for many years and many different cons, I got to meet Skybound and Image creators, read all the books from both companies (volunteers got paid in books) and really rekindle my love for comics. I saw that the comics community was small, and I now had ‘ins’ if I wanted to pitch comic ideas. And I met you, someone on the same path as me, although several steps ahead. So yeah, huge dream to have a book at the company that I spent so many years selling books to fans.
TD: And we have Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, Sean Mackiewicz, Editor Alex Antone, COO Robert Kirkman, Greg Nicotero and Shawn “Big Clutch” Kirkham to thank for this opportunity and bringing us full circle.
DB: And that brings us to Matt Roberts on art. That was such a great surprise. I've known Matt for years from that time working at the Skybound booth and been a massive fan of his. His work on Manifest Destiny was terrific, but he changed up his style for this story and wow, it came out perfect.
TD: There’s only one way to frame Matt’s work and that is he simply exceeded all expectations. The first pages coming in were a joyful shock to the system because not only did I not know he’d been assigned to our story (we were told we were in for a good surprise), but he had clearly evolved his style and it was stunning. He recently posted on social media that for this story he was allowed to lean heavily into his cartooning, and it shows. He outdrew the script. He took the designs and descriptions of Monster and fashioned an instantly iconic creature.
SCRIPT EXCERPT PAGE 8 Panel 3
Exterior house. Monster crashing through the bedroom wall like a deranged and grotesque Kool-Aid man. Monster is massive, nearly 8-feet at full height with long, sinewy arms, covered in spikey white needle-like hair. A wide, troll-like, fang-rimmed mouth comprises his entire domed head and embedded within this dark maw are his green glowing eyes. His milky off-white skin hangs from his misshapen form like torn sheets of brittle pulp paper (you are what you eat after all). NOTE: A monster concept is attached at the conclusion of the script.
DB: This was one of I think 6 or 7 stories we came up with. Well, I came up with one and you came up with 10 or so. But this was definitely a standout that we both loved from the moment you started talking about it.
TD: Give yourself credit, your stories were as wicked as Creepshow demands they be. You’ve talked about not necessarily being a “horror guy” but you went to some dark places, and me being me, I was there for it! It was cool seeing you wholeheartedly embrace the assignment, and you genuinely surprised me. Getting to hurl story ideas onto a list then pare them down to three finalist candidates for presentation to Skybound Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, Sean Mackiewicz was wildly fun.
THE THREE FINALIST TITLES WERE:
GROUP THERAPY
KEEP IT FED
THE FIRST GIRL
It was some rare elbow room creatively speaking because it felt like the only parameter, we had to keep in mind was each story had to service Creepshow–and that’s it. Our stories could involve or entail just about anything so long as they had that fundamental Creepshow morality twist.
DB: Why do you think you connected to this story so intensely?
TD: Keep It Fed came from within. Even Skybound editor Alex Antone described it as “full of heart” and that’s likely because it was drawing upon personal experience. Yes, I was one of those kids, an Ernest, the pre-teen nerd who read and collected comics and whose parents saw the pursuit as alien at worst and childish at best. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that comics were not “real books.” After years of cajoling me to give it up, (thankfully there were no gas cans involved) my parents finally pressured me into selling my collection. Long boxes full of Claremont-Byrne X-Men, Frank Miller’s complete Daredevil run (some signed) and pretty much every book I could get my hands on in the 80’s was all gone in exchange for a few hundred bucks. I did it out of spite, I did it to prove it was not a waste of time or money.
Not surprisingly, I now have a 20-year career in comics…and I’m buying back every single one of those books and then some.
DB: I realized that we have a nearly identical scene in End After End, Issue #4, so we must be trying to work through some childhood trauma.
READ MORE: END AFTER END
ISSUE #4: HONOR FOR THE DEAD
WALT WILLEM’S PARENTS ISSUE AN ULTIMATUM CONCERNING HIS DESIRE TO BE AN ARTIST AND THE HARSH REALITIES OF PURSUING A CAREER THAT WILL PAY THE BILLS.
TD: That is the real beauty of storytelling–it is an unparalleled coping mechanism for me. It’s the one place in my life where you and I share complete control–where we can govern the fate of the characters, right their wrongs, and give them the ending they deserve. My hope is that readers are always able to identify with the things we’re putting on the page and gain similar catharsis.
Stoked for this. Looking forward to reading it!