Scott Snyder and Patrick Horvath talk HORROR COMICS!

hey everybody welcome to the show I am joined today by two giants in the comic book horror genre and Beyond uh we've got beneath the trees where nobody sees Creator Patrick Horvath and of course Scott Snyder uh creator of everything including uh the the dungeon uh from dark spaces at aw uh welcome to the show guys thanks for having us on yeah absolutely it's such a nice uh opportunity to get to meet you too Patrick yes likewise but it's really nice to meet you Patrick yeah likewise man yeah I'm

uh I I love that uh both of you have such a unique perspective and such unique stories from the same publisher you're both telling uh stories about serial killers but from completely different Vantage points and uh and I wanted to talk about like where those come from and and maybe kind of see some kind of cross-pollination between the two of you guys as well um Scott I guess we'll start uh with you um when it comes to dark spaces the dungeon we're wrapping up yeah and yeah and it's a series I m

ean I I love it like uh you know I I I didn't know realize how much I would enjoy having a like a space to be this Twisted um in the real world like I have a lot of a lot of uh sort of creative um uh spaces where I get to do like Monsters and you know all kinds of cosmic horror or you know supernatural horror ghosts and goblins and all that kind of stuff and um dark spaces has become the place to where I get to go and do sort of um real uh psychological grounded uh sort of claustrophobic stories

um and I haven't done a horror story in that space really I since the very beginning of my career honestly um where I did a book called severed so uh to be able to do that here I I didn't know how much I would enjoy it so I'm going to miss it a lot when it's gone it's got like it but it's it's definitely it's been also like such a a tour of like an incredibly an incredibly Grim psychology so it will be a relief as well do you find do you find when you uh when you explore the space that that kin

d of excises that part because I can imagine you know at any given point living in American society there's a uh there's a cloud of Gloom over us at any point but do you find that you can Channel some of that and when you excise it through dark spaces you're like ah like I'm I did it I lived my my gloominess or I I took my like kind of negative space and and channel it into my work and now I can kind of look on look on something more positive well it's always awkward when you're like thinking ab

out a story like that and you're your kid soccer game or whatever or this or that and especially if you like Google it you're like Googling it wall you know and it's waiting for waiting for the authorities to arrive at any minute yep um but I think you know and it speaks to what I love about um beneath the trees where nobody sees as well um when when I getting to do horror and horror is you know it's like my my favorite genre it's like home it gives you a place to explore your anxieties and the

things you're really afraid of and this kind of safe with these guard rails on um and so it does give you a chance if not to excise things then at least to really explore them in a deep way and what I love about um dungeon is that it is sort of like a Alex Cross Clarice Starling kind of serial killer Thriller but what it's really about in in a lot of ways is emotionally it's about somebody who um believes that they've kind of escaped this person's clutches by getting out of this this dungeon Tha

t was supposed to hold them their whole life um and instead finds them unable to escape emotionally intellectually any of it um and they're obsessed with it um and on a different level like what dark spaces has given me a chance to do with um wildfire and now dungeon is to try and do genre stuff but make it uh make stories that feel like they touch on what I think is in the Zeitgeist even if I'm wrong so Wildfire you know it's a it's a Noir set against these kind of endless apocalyptic wildfires

in in the California Hills um and here it's about um a serial killer who believes himself to be kind of the next evolution of evil because instead of just attacking people or killing them um out of impulse he likes to manipulate and control their entire lives inside of these horrifying Dungeons and you know what his thinking is is that that's kind of what a uh a paradigm of of um of predatory evil would do in a society that's all about control manipulation um you know connectivity all of that s

tuff so it's a lot of fun it gives me a chance to explore yeah the things that are on my mind in all kinds of ways and what I like most about or one of the things I like so much about um Patrick's book is how it feels similar where the anthropomorphic animals like you would never expect to ever be that dark and then when you get to when you get to that first murder spoiler but like in issue one with the duck and it's like so violent and and you see that like literally like bisected head with the

brain and all of this stuff it feels like that it's resonates on a different level as as as strange as it sounds because you're seeing things that are these avatars of innocence and yet they're being so hyperviolet and they're so much like us that it feels like it's speaking to a kind of you know a kind of an anger or a or a or a fear in a way that it feels there's an energy on the page to that absolutely uh and it's funny you keyed into something about claustrophobia and immediately my mind we

nt to beneath the trees uh with with Woodbrook and this kind of like intimate uh setting uh with the small town atmosphere uh Patrick where did uh the decision to set it in Woodbrook and create this kind of like cute Americana idolic scene and set it against the horror like where where did that come from um I think it was a probably like a combination of uh the sort of Richard scary children's books um that was a big inspiration when I was kind of fleshing out like what this world would be and h

e has busy town if you're not familiar with the Richard scary books and so I was like well this would be like a busy town um and then I also sort of laid over that the the you in my mind anyway of sort of a David Lynch's blue velvet oh um Riverton sort of you know making it like a the idic but obviously like there's so much dark stuff underneath that you could dip into uh and then it was just kind honestly it was like a match up with those two um and then I really wanted it to feel you know prot

ected in a way also of like a lot of the towns people that they had been sort of sheltered for anybody who had never like really left um so that all of this stuff kind of in a busy town sort of way like it would just you know to have like murder in busy town with the idea of like how much would that shake up things because I really wanted to have the impact felt um so much so that it starts kind of unraveling the town a bit oh absolutely and and to have that like they just can't even process it

in so many of them that it's you know it's such a problem yeah I I noticed uh when reading the the first three issues which I was able to Shotgun by the way which is awesome uh but um uh and and I understand um you thought of uh approaching this whole series as an original graphic novel originally is that correct yeah that's just how I I pitched it I think when I was first talking about Mark Doyle at IDW he' mentioned um yeah send us some pitches for like a graphic do or something and you know w

e'll see what's up and so that was just my idea I broke it up in the chapters as I was writing it and when I sort of the response to it though when I was talking with Maggie hows sort of like oh this is going to be great like the issue one's great issue two is great and was blah and I was like Oh I thought they'd be chapters but I'm totally happy to do you know singles that'd be amazing that's just kind of how it happened I've noticed that uh it's actually not it's a it's a wonderful device beca

use it forces me to turn the page it forces me to go to the next one um I found that uh obviously by is by the end of issue one you have to know what happens to the next one but sure there is like an act break there is a a built-in break at the end of each isue to have you go well I gotta read the ne I I have to pick up the next copy uh both of you guys have uh experience now working um obviously with the development of beneath the trees as kind of an original graphic novel but then breaking it

into uh individual issues and Scott with your experience writing stories that uh are collected in original graphic novels do you guys seem to have uh a preference like did you do you like to write it in terms of like a bulk or do you like the kind of surprise element of I'm writing as single issue I have some time between issues I kind of like to be kind of challenged and go what's going to happen I don't I don't even I don't necessarily know what's gonna happen in the next one that's a great qu

estion I mean uh I I they're just really different muscles for me honestly like the doing something that's sort of one long form story I probably have the muscle memory like so burned into me at this point that I do the like sequential breaks within it sure um but knowing that it has to be presented that way and that the story itself has that uh has that sort of specific kind of causality where like each issue really leads you to the next issue and they're a unit and has a each thing has a shape

and has its own kind of circularity and and all of that stuff um it's I mean I love it so uh I I I I would I don't know if I prefer one or the other I mean right now because I'm doing a lot of or you know I'm doing sequential Comics like I miss having the big like rolly space of like a graphic novel or something to work on where they're aren't chapter breaks but yeah they're they're really different muscles honestly for me and and I enjoy both that's fair uh go go ahhe I was just gonna say I me

an I feel like um it's uh I don't know if I could ever put together something where I didn't know what the whole thing was going to be just cuz I've never had that yeah opportunity um and then it's one of those things where I'm like I'm so bad at coming up with stuff and like and then I don't know this is like sort of Jazzy like where am I going with this I'm with that too like oh I'm so bad I have to I have to look the whole road map and then be like okay yeah yeah yeah and this will be that an

d I'm so how much do you know just out of curiosity so like going into it and when we're off the air I I'm like I like torn between like wanting to know what happens in I read in five and six um and just reading it for myself if you have them and you send them I I will read them like right but um I'm curious because I I'm like fascinated by people's processes I have some friends that it's like the complete inversion of what you and I sound like we do where if I have one friend if he knows the en

ding of the story it's like boring to him so he has to totally interesting and to be fair he's writing books not Comics so he can find it and then go back and edit it oh sure sure but that said like for me I can't start unless I know like the I I have like the first few big beats I know where I'm headed at the end in terms of what it's about like what what I'm trying to say with it and then some of the turns in the middle you know like some of the big kind of character and emotional stuff and th

en once I start to have that shape then I can I can at least dive in and start if not writing then at least kind of outlining more yeah you know but those I need like those sign kind of anchor points 100% I absolutely need them I find that I've written whole screen plays where I got to the end and I was like me because I didn't know what I was do I was literally just like and then this will happen and whatever and I got to the whole thing and I was just kind of like N I didn't care there was not

hing really satisfying about it I sort of like basically had like painted myself into this corner of like it's a conclusion but it's not really satisfying what the hell am I saying with this like like you know and then uh and then I and there there were so many moments where I was stuck and um and I just hated that and liked that so I realized that uh if I had those little signposts throughout all the way to the end then I would always have the thing I'm aiming for but there's still totally like

Discovery yeah like the whole issue three of this was a total like that issue wasn't in oh with really yeah and that was a it was a beat because I wanted a red herring beat but I didn't know that um I could I honestly because it was five I pitched it was like five chapters and then there were like Maggie was like Hey so I think I would love to to pitch doing six and then um and then because I feel like it'll give it a little more room to breathe and um and then I was allowed to expand into issu

e three which to me is like a totally interesting issue that dives into yeah yeah yeah and it very much gets into this interesting space of like grief uh and how that plays out amongst people and also how the killer fits into it and I was just oh God I pulled my thing off anyway so I was like oh my God uh this is like a great opportunity to you know this great opportunity to just um you know sit in that it was super suspenseful too because without giving spoilers like you're not sure what's goin

g to happen to Samantha like I didn't I didn't know I didn't know there there are just Great Moments there where you're like is is she caught or is she going to lash out or what so it wonderful I appreciate that thank you very much um but yeah I so yeah I definitely I there's still those moments to find uh even in the process of laying it all out um which I love but it's if I don't know where I'm going it could just be a waste of time though man I've been there believe me like but I think it's o

ne of the things that like Comics because they do come out behind you and like you generally like it's I can't think of a time like I've written six full issues you know most arcs to three issues six issues whatever but most like five to six issues like I can't really think of a time I've had the chance to write all of that ahead of issue one being locked at least like locked down so there it's always this kind of feeling of It kind of coming behind you and it's it's good because it makes you at

least me like I I feel like I would refine things and refine things until they just became like a potato and meant nothing you know right so having to let go of it and like just have it begin is good but it is also like you know that's why I feel like just like you're saying Patrick it's like I need I need to at least see the thing I'm pointing towards to be able to you know so I don't kind of go off the rails and then have it all catch me and be like oh no yeah yeah yeah it's interesting you g

uys talked about um Patrick your your examp of like having an opportunity to expand your narrative and it actually ended up improving your story and it changed the entire kind of like structure of your story because without the cat element you don't have that kind of like red herring twist in your in your act uh Scott do you have any other examples of um where you got an opportunity to expand your narrative and it completely changed your story from Pitch to execution something where you're like

oh yeah sure I mean every almost everyone has those moments you know in Dungeon I think it really was like the ending was really locked from the very beginning we discussed it a lot so like the end of Issue four through issue five was always going to be there and then one to two I kind of knew but a lot of three and four were sort of figuring out what made the most sense and one of my favorite conversation four has like one of my favorite moments in the whole thing where um uh bod and Tyler are

just like sitting in a diner trying to figure out what to do yeah and um they're looking at these horrible photos that the killer has like sent to um they're like Photoshop photos that he sent to the family of somebody he's taken trying to taunt them with who the person might have been it's really sadistic yeah it's awesome that was such an excellent excellent move so mean I know completely breaks the person that receives them they're just like I don't want to do anything anymore I just want to

die yeah and then still want it that they still like it yeah well and then like what happened was like I'll give you an example of how it works sometimes just in comics in this medium like Hayden is such an amazing co-creator and they're just they I they have total license to like storytelling a page should be a different way or and I always like it makes the the process so much more fun because it makes me sort of react to some of the stuff that they do um and it's always it always comes out be

tter for that um and it keeps me young you know as a writer to have to adjust and so anyway like that scene was way longer than I had written it where they kind of were just in a diner and bod and and and they're not really talking and then all of a sudden um uh Tyler realizes they can use these Photoshop photos to kind of track down one of the last steps of this killer uh I I so I was like what do I do here what do I do you know and I wound up having uh bod start talking about this thing that T

yler asked and he never answered about what was his childhood like to try and take their minds off this case um earlier in the issue and so he has this conversation about a how he loved to bird watch and he had a bird and it was called this bird called Finn and how it you know would would scream when he was outside when he was away from the room and and it wound up being like a big theme and then I wrote it into a later issue um in a different way too in issue five sort of added a beat or two an

d it's it became one of like the not just one of my favorite moments but I think one of the the strongest sort of thematic and emotional touchstones to the book and that's all just because Hayden drew it longer than I thought you know and I think you know it would it's not like the whole book would be different otherwise but it's it would have other sort of discoveries like you said Patrick or other kind of moments that I love that you know would come out if it had just been executed differently

by uh Hayden so it's it's that's that's the fun to me is like when you you're confident in the story you're telling and you can kind of play and and experience that kind of the small Revelations like that along the way and be like oh I don't know if I love this I don't know if it works but I'm gonna try it out yeah Scott you've been uh surprised by your artist uh doing something as they are collaborators and storytellers themselves and giving you something that you didn't expect from your own n

arrative Patrick as the writer and illustrator of your own work uh do you that the artist portion also kind of challenges or surprises you as a as a Storyteller where you you've scripted you've structured your story and then when you bring uh pen to paper you go no and start changing things based on just the just the visual Acuity of the story yeah right um uh well not necessarily and it's essentially because I don't write I write and I thumbnail at the exact same time okay and so I can't becaus

e I just have such a tough time um like just sort of imagining it be like I don't know how much like design-wise on the spread what would this look like and if I don't already kind of see that then I'll have to go back and do it again in a certain way and retweet stuff so just for efficiency sake all sort of thumbnail everything so I kind of already have an idea of what's going to happen visually um and that informs the writing and and so uh that said too I I think I mean I'm I'm definitely open

as well to uh writing and having somebody else draw it uh and even if I did I would still do this uh and not show anything that I thumbnailed just so I had an idea of like what I was thinking in my head and then completely let the artist come up with whatever they got um and then let it totally change uh as needed um but uh but uh it's you know because I am very much open to that collaboration the most collaboration I get to do is just with lettering so hman Al does all the lettering and uh and

he's amazing uh and it's a uh it's the help you know put in things that I'm totally not anticipating um and it enhances stuff so much that it's uh it's wonderful and I love that part of it um but yeah in terms of the art it's pretty much I kind I kind of already know what what's GNA happen I'm so envious I really like I wanted to be a comic book artist all through high school like terrible copies of like Rob leld and Todd McFarland and Eric Larsson and all those image guys at that time oh yeah

me too and then I got to college and realized I wasn't good enough or I just and they're no well it was like I I and I also fell in love with the writing aspect more so I sort of but I I it's so to this day Jeff lamir is always like he sent me twice he sent me like brushes and things to go back I'm the idea just the the the the totality of the vision and the singular sort of uh the the how robust it is how it feels like one person throughout is is so invigorating reading your book I mean it it l

ike seamless it just feels like it's from one yeah just one Creative Energy oh thanks I mean I would say I would say um I would still love to see art from you but um the um it's yeah I didn't I didn't I stopped draw I drew a bunch when I was a kid and then I got into Comics during like the early 90s so like during image coming up and so all that stuff it was exact same like I was draw whatever I you know wild stormy looking thing and then uh I stopped drawing After High School just because I wan

ted to do movies and I felt so like I was some kid from Iowa and I was just like I'm never you're not going to be I'm it's going to be so hard to make movies um unless you just don't do anything but live and breathe movies right which was a dumb idea but I didn't I didn't know so I just felt like I could it's like I'm not gonna bother with drawing or whatever uh and then uh it wasn't until I was like 30 and then I was like oh yeah I love drawing forgot that I love drawing um and I'd done a coupl

e of little movies at that point and was it takes so long and I was just like no I'll just draw for fun because it's a small thing to do and it can I can have an idea and finish it within an hour I love that and so um and so then that was kind of how that all picked up again I was gonna ask you if this has already been optioned or any of that stuff too just because it would make such a fantastic animated like R-rated feature I agree um it has not uh nothing's been optioned yet I'm working in tha

t space anybody's listening um give me a call uh I mean I just un like that I'm working in that space with witches with uh yeah the people that do invincible and that stuff right now and cool I honestly like that lane is so fun right I just feel like it's going to expand further where we have a whole generation of people like my age younger whatever but that were raised on sort of sophisticated um animation whether it was like anime or Pixar or all of it but like it was still it was still sort o

f like partly for kids and this and then now you're seeing things that are so sophisticated in their um and Progressive in their visual style and in their storytelling like spiderverse and um and all these things and it feels as though it's like on the cusp of of really kind of blowing open further about having more animated television shows more oh yeah films on streaming and all that stuff that are R-rated like for adults and to me this would be like I would I I feel like it would show up in a

second for this I feel well I appreciate that um if I ran Hollywood I would do it also doesn't hurt that it's a Surefire thing it's like a thing that would definitely catch as it's catching in the uh in the current space the audience is loving beneath the trees uh as uh I hear it constantly like we're in this space so we're going to hear about people who it's not like I'm going to the grocery store and hear people talk about dude did you read the latest issue of anything trust me in the comic b

ook space it's there's a lot of's a lot of hubub but um I feel like if you go over to Japan Andor France or something you might you'd hear you'd over hear conversations about about art uh certainly um and and and manga and Comics but uh I wanted to ask you both I thought it' just be kind of fun since you both are uh not only contributors to pop culture but also you absorb it yourselves um is there any horror fiction today that you are enjoying now presently that isn't your own oh yeah I mean I t

hink it's like a golden age right now for horror and comics where yeah I mean first and foremost like my like best friend one of my closest friends James Tian I think is just killing it with Department of Truth and something is killing the children and now spectrograph coming out from Distillery I mean he's just oh and the Deviant is also amazing um by him so he's just like a horror machine yeah J not right I know it's just rattled off a bunch of titles all they're all great like he doesn't and

I I met him it was funny because I was like an adjunct teacher and he was an undergrad and that's how we met was he was my student in like the this like where Sarah Lawrence oh yeah excellent yeah and then when I got broke into Comics we just stayed in touch and um and he was always incredibly talented but now like when your student becomes somebody you learn from it's like a huge you know just a huge thrill but I would I would point to him first and foremost as someone who's but there's so many

good series out there you know Philadelphia and on and on and on there's like yeah it's a great moment I think for horror and Comics I agree oh yeah I uh I also agree with that um and just in general too uh in film and also uh Pros stuff oh I'm like the thing that sucks about uh working on Comics is that it takes a long time so the um so like I have been not able to catch up on reading or watching movies Etc um so I just have like this list of like to be read to be watched um but then I can lis

ten to audiobooks and so uh I have been cruising through a ton of stuff um and there's just a lot of exciting uh horror stuff coming through in books as well um and I feel like like uh you know it's there's something in the air that is allowing folks to um evolve the genre in really interesting ways um and and and it's t and and it's still like in you know following suit from what's come before but at the same time like um you know it's just as the times change and the sort of anxieties of conte

mporary society change um we have like this new space for you know this this I guess familiar space of horror to explore all that um which is really fun uh and I think that it's you know it's it's never going to get old not for me anyway I love yeah I agree I mean and it is it is like a strangely I think you're right like a strangely daring and feels like evolving moment for horror and film and all of it where yeah you're seeing there's almost like this there's there's always like you know fun s

lasher or whatever but there's also this like height level of dread in a lot of the films and this kind of pervasive anxiety this like low frequency you know jangling kind of fear throughout an atmospheric fear and it feels like it's more of a pervasive kind of you know uh emotional sort of tone of the thing that feels like everyday life these days where you're like more just feels interesting I mean to me I definitely cut my teeth on like a lot of the um you know 70s 80s horror film making uh i

n terms of being a fan and that stuff totally I mean like you've got a whole Vietnam generation that was just spilling their brains out onto movies and I feel like that was such a crazy time to have lived through and much like today feels like such a crazy time that like they um that it's you know it makes sense to me that this would be you know it's funny because like I got into horror stuff I'd always watched it I guess you know just as a movie fan but then I really keyed in on it in college a

nd even had like class you know that was very much focused on it and then that really helped me be like oh my God there's like so much different stuff that I even knew about um and really helped me appreciate all the different ways that you can explore stuff through horror uh because it's such an experimental medium like genre I should say not medium but experimental genre that allows for all sorts of stuff and nobody bats an eye right like you can do so much stuff with it and it's all on the ta

ble uh but at the same time you're really touching a lot of nerves uh in some interesting ways and sort of transgressive ways that I find the most interesting I think if you're doing it right yeah absolutely yeah I mean like there's stuff in there's stuff Scott in Dungeon that's like so dark in terms of you know just the uh you know the inner workings of the keep's philosophy I know I like I honestly there are a couple books like that like that one and book of evil like there are a couple books

I've done over the last couple years that I honestly I like got uncomfortable writing them you know because it was like it just goes It goes really really dark and I don't know I it's it's like a weird space it's like when I used to write the Joker a lot of the time and write these long things with him and I know there are a lot of different interpretations but like the interpretation that we had was was really um was really Grim where he was he was just like mercilessly punishingly bad and you'

re in that head space for a while and it's like it's thrilling and then it just gets like by the time I was done I was like I have to I have to like get out of here yeah andon and book of evil were like that where I love the stories but both of them were like just it's like stepping into a dark room you know when you do them and it's it's it's hard yeah yeah one of the things do you find this Patrick I find like sometimes I can write things like as dark as I can write like the darkest of the dar

k for myself but there's some things like I can't watch even if like I could write about them like like like this like a kid being kidnapped or a kid being taken and I honestly don't know that I could watch that if I wasn't writing it just because I young kids and it's just too much for me like the Mysteries where a kid dies and yet I'm always killing kids in my own stua them in witches and like you know throwing them off cliffs and yeah all kinds of murderous murderous actions but like in it's

weird I I feel when I'm not in control of it then I feel really uncomfortable yeah I don't know if I I don't know if I I haven't um pretty much everything's on the table for me to check out um depending on it but if there's there's definitely some movies that like like I don't know if you've ever seen martyr Mar Martyrs was one that took me a long time to get up the nerve to watch and it's a rough one it's actually like we can have a whole thing about that movie and that whole French French wave

of horror that you saw them and yeah inside exactly I've seen all those like I went through a whole thing but yes but you know weirdly like when I have to list the movies that I really would cite as like horror movies that that hit me in not just like a you know sort of salacious or gross way but something that that that Disturbed me and made me think and maybe it's awful maybe it's not but Martyrs was interesting in the way it earned at that ending with oh it's so it's such a rock solid philos

ophy of how they got to the end that I'm like I gotta allow it that's what I mean it's just but it's like it's so punishing stck the landing oh it's such a hard ride yeah but it's it's the when when a story I mean that's what like I don't know Tyler is here like he has to leave in a but the my assistant we were just he's here because we were teaching last night and he always stays over and that and you know I'll be to him like God this one is like I feel like this one's so dark this ending and i

t's like you just have to be like sometimes it's like well that's where it goes you know what I mean yes hard but I was saying this to him just the other day where I was like this ending is too dark and then I'm like maybe I should change it maybe I should put maybe I should uh call them and be like what if we put an alternate ending in the trade where it's like you could see that maybe I'm not I thought of another one at it's not this PE but like you know you can't mitigate it you have to just

like Let It Be but I mean my favorite so many of my favorite things like Night of the Living Dead you know yeah just my favorite horror movie ever it was like the first thing that really really knocked me back when I was like 10 or 11 and I I thought it was gonna suck because it was black and white and I was like this is so stupid and I I like we rented it from a place where you could only they would deliver R-rated movies to your house but they would not rent them to you in the store in New Yor

k City and so like it was this neighborhood secret and we were like sleep away camp 2 and all that and then this but it was so grim and like nobody you thought was gonna live lived and it took me a while to realize that and spoiler but it's like 60 years old if somebody is hasn't seen sorry but the the idea that um it was it took me a while to realize why that was so powerful that the young couple and the hero and like nobody makes it out because it's about you know it's about our failure in col

lectivism even in like the threat of catastrophe or C or cataclysm or whatever so that but that my favorite things you know often are like that you know to have that grimness I guess I feel like it's it to me it's like what resonates and if it's not earned and not resonating then I'm then I check out and if it is if it does resonate with me and I carry that with me that's like my goal if I can have a reader carry something with them that kind of sticks in their head then that's you know I I uh t

hat's an achievement yeah that's what you're just you're describing being haunted uh Patrick yeah by the way uh very much want to haunt people yeah absolutely uh there is a um there's an element that I think that you guys are keying into that you uh both seem to love and also Infuse into your horror and it is the matter OFA this your horror protagonist like the your your antagonist or protagonist in case of Samantha uh about their existential surrender to the instinct to be monstrous just like w

ell this is I am a monster and uh that's just how it is and it's just this is the reality and the world has to react to that and and of course their reaction is a lot less uh mundane because yeah what they're doing is monstrous uh but I find that's that's the case in both of them both the keep and Samantha are both kind of like this is how it is like this is just my this is my reality and I'm imposing it onto actual reality yeah very much I feel like it's to me it was the I didn't want it to be

uh a lot of comparisons have come up just in terms of the beneath the trees and like Dexter is like a cultural T Touchstone of like what's this about it was like well you're following a serial killer it's an easy short hand but I didn't want to I very I mean I and I hadn't really seen Dexter uh I'd seen the first episode and then when I started putting this together I purposely avoided it because I didn't want to get too inspired about stuff or whatever so um I did know that he mostly just kills

like bad people sort of a way that he was sort of raised to channel this and I didn't want that to be the case with Samantha very much on purpose just because it didn't make sense from like she really wants to you know stay hidden like it would be a lot more make a lot more sense to just be completely random about it um and uh that sort of cold-bloodedness was a very like a I wanted to make it like as hard as possible to like you know Samantha um in terms of how you would you know the audience

would respond to her and at the same time be compelled to still follow along for the ride and see how this is going to go and to see like her thing whatever the the world was that she'd set up for herself to be in Peril yeah and I thought that that it's very much like a Norman baates sort of situation where you're following along with him like is he really going to be able to hide this thing or whatever and so um it uh it you know I I feel like the matter of fness is part of that for sure like i

t's very you know it's it's just a sort of her everyday existence and um and I think there's something about watching somebody being good about doing something everybody likes to watch somebody who's good at something yes yeah especially very much well because they're doing something they're doing the worst thing like they're doing the worst thing and you're like this is a thing that I have been conditioned by culture is something you don't get away with whether it's morally or legally uh and wa

tching that happen and watching them execute it so well and then of course the reveal of Smith being like it's been decades that I've been doing this you know and you're like you only know about the ones you know about exactly there's that moment there's a sequence where she's putting put the Ducks into into the paint Bales right and I'm like you're put you're signing it these are these are the but you're going to get caught she's like it's been like 30 it's been 20 years and I'm like oh never m

ind okay well I'll just put that out of my mind again I like the yeah also like there's something this is sounds awful but like there's something fascinating about like I think being free from morality like you know the idea that somebody doesn't have guilt or Compassion or empathy and it's just that that thing that's like I feel like I keep writing stories about those characters trying to convince everybody else that this is better it's like the next evolutionary step in some way of people that

which is horrifying and not true but I just mean like you see so many of the loudest voices in the room like getting rewarded for being you know sociopathic in a lot of ways or just being completely you know uncaring of other people um politically and all that stuff that you feel as though there's kind of a reward system for being bad sometimes and that sense of like well what if being good or being moral or ethical is this like vestage of limb or something that's like you know what I mean it j

ust holds you back because think of how wonderful it would be if you didn't care about anybody but yourself like right and there's something there's something I think alluring to people about following a serial killer the way they do Samantha in your book so well and I love those stories because there is like a thrill not to be a killer but to be free of of like like you said Sal too like restraint in some ways whether it's cultural or it's just emotional and psychological you know but it does s

eem like Patrick is infusing something in his art with Samantha when you see her she doesn't seem happy no you know like there is this kind of like Blas dull wash over her eyes that says like either and and it could be any number of things and I'm not I'm not trying to like Scott our both fans are both like oh my God like we want to kind of just want to read the next chapter but and I'm not trying to get to that but I am saying that like it seems to be that there is either she is um bored lookin

g for some new challenge or that it doesn't fulfill her like she thought it would or that it used to because you can see her like when she's doing these things and she's like yeah you know like in the beginning when we see the big duck sequence it's like yeah that's that we're seeing her doing something really well and she seems very uh you know this is this is what centers me I find myself in a good place and you know calms me down but like whenever she's do you know the when when the goat is s

trung up and everything her reaction is just this very like kind of unfeeling unimpressed unsurprised all yeah none of that stuff phases her right yeah like I feel like it's very much um she's I mean she is she's it's like Samantha the way she sits in Woodbrook is that she is sort of a couple steps ahead of everybody in many regards but then also because she's sort of aoral and the way she kind of views everything um it's just none of that stuff impacts her uh in the same way and I feel like the

re's a certain there I mean there is a dullness to her right right that she in terms of an emotional uh richness that she doesn't have just void yeah um and it's more observational and she knows how to play the part super well yeah uh because she's just that's how she's sort of adapted with everything um but it's definitely like you know it's more of a curiosity that drives her towards that stuff and then also and it is sort of a there's a definite fulfilling element to her murdering because she

sort of has that you know I mean it's sort of like she you know kind of gets horny for murder and then it it washes over yeah goes away when she fulfills it and then and then it kind of comes back and so it's it's sort of this thing that she sort of dealt with but even the dealing with it has become you know it's nature well it's sort of like smoking or whatever you you got that cigarette then you're like I'm okay fine I get a buzz but I don't feel bad yeah and so you know whatever uh Scott for

contrast and I I don't want to tell Tales out of school here but I feel like the motivations of the keep going through the motions of producing an entire alternate future for his victims the keep deeply cares yeah I mean he loves I mean he's the most sadistic sort of psychology I could make up I think where he he thrives on the actual pain caused by the removal of this person from like the currency of the world like so he loves hurting you by taking something you the person you love out of the

context of your life and then reminding you they're gone all the time and being somewhere else like so that they're still out there I was like trying to think of the worst like hell I could put myself in like what would be the worst thing and it's that not knowing what happened to the person that you love and then somebody else knows and they're taunting you it's like yeah yeah it reminds me of that moment in um uh Minority Report when uh Tom Cruz's character is talking to the precog and she giv

es the whole alternate future for his dead son for his dead son yeah and they're so and they're so like hugging each other and and and you're just like that's the worst thing you could have told like I you that thank you now I know I can concretely say the future of my child was robbed and it sucks that it's gone like uh yeah it's I I just love the idea of the keep being like yeah I'm gonna do this crazy thing to this person it's gonna be monstrous and horrible and you know what I'm not done lik

e I I I killed the person but I really what's how can I make it worse for anybody like yeah it's just what I love is like Samantha's I mean I I love characters like that that also people are always saying well a villain needs to be sympathetic a villain needs to be you know you have to create somebody that has and I'm not saying you don't sympathize with her because she's she's worried about being found out right but I mean I like characters that are just like wholly black on the inside like I t

hink there are people like that in the world and it just yeah there's no they they're they're yeah they're just you know they're they're just out to cause harm and that's it you know maybe it maybe not in fiction at least I love that personality like you know I mean I love writing it because it's so it's just it's just so nightmarish you know it's super compelling and very fascinating yeah gentlemen uh we could talk about horror all day clearly uh I I think we've uh formed a friendship and now y

ou guys going to go off and have a conversation about this more but uh especially uh the the French impact on Modern horror and cinema today but uh gentlemen thank you so much for being here thanks for having this conversation before we go uh Patrick where can the people find you uh they want to get more Patrick Corvette yeah you can I mean you can always find me at Patrick corvette.com and that's got like you can find my Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff from there and SC on Instagram an

d Twitter and um it's the same always it's just s Snider and then 1835 it's just Elvis's birthday I was I was like a kid I have always wondered what what 835 was and I I'll I'll be honest with you I thought it was like a civil war reference like there was something battle that took place in 1835 or something but no no nothing that cryptic it's very it's like just yeah or whatever it's yeah it's but anyway um find me there and again if anyone like I can't tell you like how thrilling it is to find

like I know you're not like new talent in the way that you're you're not like you know a kid coming in but to find someone new in the comic space that's doing such amazing work so if you've not picked up uh beneath the trees where nobody sees like go do it because it's fantastic oh thank you so much I sincerely appreciate I love it it's fantastic um it's yeah it is uh it's incredibly encouraging to have people like so established as yourself doing like championing this stuff it's hugely appreci

ated um that's great and yeah so thank you very much I really appreciate that oh sure well you got the links folks check them out and and uh don't forget to pre-order your Comics see you guys next time