Have you ever written a scary story? In honor of the Halloween season, we are interviewing horror writers to learn about the craft of scaring readers.
We sat down with comics creator I.N.J. Culbard to discuss his new graphic novel, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Culbard adapted the story from H.P. Lovecraft’s novel. Check out the highlights from our interview below…
Q: How did you land your first book deal?
A: Back in 2004 I was enrolled in The New Recruits programme set up by Dark Horse comics. I had two stories appear in an anthology there and a short while after that, 2000AD publisher Rebellion published a short strip of mine called “Monsters in The Megazine.” Following the work I did there I got in contact with artist D’Israeli, who put me in contact with a long time collaborator of his, Ian Edginton.
Ian asked me to provide the art for a graphic novel adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray for SelfMadeHero. And that’s were I really got my start. We then went on to adapt the Sherlock Holmes novels and shortly after that, whilst Edginton was working on something else, I took the initiative and pitched At the Mountains of Madness to SelfMadeHero as a solo project, and the rest is history.
Q: This graphic novel is an adaptation based on H.P. Lovecraft’s novel. What’s the difference between working on this kind of project versus an original story?
A: Well, for a start you have a story to work with. So the ground work is all set and done for you. I do take the story apart and reconstruct it again after that, but essentially that’s the key difference. You have material to work with. The good thing about Lovecraft is there’s not a great deal of characterisation and not a great deal of dialogue, so it leaves me with a lot to play with.
Q: What’s your advice for aspiring horror writers?
A: Read a lot. You’ll hear that as general advice from most writers, but you really have to immerse yourself in what it is you want to do in order to be able to do it.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: I’m adapting The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers for SelfMadeHero, which will be out next spring, and then I’m working on an original graphic novel which I can’t say much about except that it will be out next autumn.
Q: What are your favorite scary books?
A: Nothing quite scares me like Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben’s Swamp Thing. That was an incredible series. And I’m presently reading and very much enjoying Monster by Naoki Urasawa which I believe is being adapted for television by Guillermo Del Toro.