A few weeks ago, I featured Rachel Deering's Anathema series, and promised she'd be back before the month was over. Well, here she is, with her anthology project In the Dark that is closing out its Kickstarter campaign, appropriately enough, on Halloween.
A huge horror fan, Deering has put together a collection of some of the best creators working in horror comics today into a 250 page hardcover anthology that is a labor of love. A veteran of the Womanthology project, Deering is no stranger to a project of this size and scope, and it's impressive to see how well this came together.
Thanks to an amazing grouping of talent and Deering's professionalism that's led to a solid base of supporters, In the Dark funded quickly and is looking to come in somewhere around 200% of its original goal.
There's still plenty of time to go, however, and if you are a fan of comics horror, this is a book you want on your shelf alongside your collections of Creepy. IDW does amazing work on their books in terms of quality, so I can just about guarantee that it will be one of the nicest-looking titles you'll own--even if it's filled with content designed to bring bile into your throat and keep your heart beating out a staccato sound.
So just how good is the lineup for this project? Here's a partial list of writers and artists involved in the anthology, taken from the project's main site:
WRITERS:
- RACHEL DEERING - CREEPY, Diablo III, Anathema
- SCOTT SNYDER - Batman, American Vampire, The Wake
- STEVE NILES - 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Mystery Society
- PAUL TOBIN - Colder, Conan, Bandette
- DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI - Judge Dredd, Godzilla, Birds of Prey
- TIM SEELEY - Hack/Slash, Revival, The Occultist
- MATTHEW DOW SMITH - Hellboy, Dr. Who, Sandman Mystery Theatre
- MICHAEL MORECI & STEVE SEELEY - Hoax Hunters
- DECLAN SHALVEY - Deadpool, Conan, Venom
ARTISTS:
- ANDY BELANGER - Swamp Thing, Kill Shakespeare, Black Church
- ROBERT WILSON IV - Knuckleheads, Like A Virus
- MATTHEW DOW SMITH - Hellboy, Dr. Who, October Girl
- MARC LAMING - Planet of the Apes, The Activity, King's Watch
- MIKE HENDERSON - Masks & Mobsters, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man
That's an amazing grouping right there, all inside one collection. Even the names I was less familiar with have strong creative credits on projects for all of the major publishers as well as their own work.
This is the first of what I hope will be a series of horror anthologies from Deering, but the only way for that to occur is if this first version shows as much potential as it possibly can. What I really appreciate about Deering and this project is that unlike a lot of kickstarters that create trinkets people will end up throwing away, she's pouring the extra money back to increase creator pay and look to create further work for horror writers and artists. To me, that's what a good KS should do--give the backers what they asked for and then use the rest to make more books and pay their people as much as they can.
In the Dark has only a few days to go on Kickstarter, so why not give yourself a Halloween treat and back it today? It may not protect you against vampires, but it's sure to be a thrill.
