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EXCLUSIVE: Interview With TRIPPER And GHOST PROJEKT Scribe Joe Harris! Part 1

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Often times doing this job you come into contact with people who are just a pleasure to talk to and carry on a conversation with. Joe Harris is one of those people. Joe’s resume is quite long, having worked in both film (“THE TRIPPER”, “DARKNESS FALLS”) and comic books (“GHOST PROJEKT”, “BATMAN”, “CREEPY”). While Joe is busy at work promoting his newest endeavor “GHOST PROJEKT”, which we previewed for you earlier this month, he was gracious enough to sit down and interview with me about his old and new projects alike, comics, and film. Beyond the break you will find the first half of my exclusive one on one with Joe, where we discuss remakes, “gore-porn”, and his new story from Oni Comics.

TD: Well first I should thank you for your time yet again. I know things must be pretty hectic in your life with “Ghost Projekt” getting so much buzz, it has to have been exciting. Before we get into all that though why don’t you introduce yourself to the readers who might not be familiar with your body of work?

JH: I’ve been doing this for a little while now, at this point. I started writing for Marvel Comics some years ago, launching new Spider-Man and X-Men titles. While I was doing that, I set out to make this short horror film, TOOTH FAIRY which ended up getting bought and developed into a feature at Revolution Studios. They hired me to write the first three or four drafts of that script and Sony released the heavily re-written result as DARKNESS FALLS. I also co-wrote David Arquette’s directorial debut, THE TRIPPER which featured a Ronald Reagan cos-playing serial killer who takes out a bunch of hippies at an outdoor music festival. I’ve been attached to so many genre franchise sequels, remakes, pitches and rewrites in some way or another it’s dizzying to recall. But I’ve never really forgotten about comics. I co-wrote wrote the Fox Atomic series of graphic novels, THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY based on horror author Thomas Ligotti’s short stories. I’ve done dark, horrific projects related to BATMAN at DC Comics and have been a contributing writer to the newly relaunched CREEPY at Dark Horse Comics. And now I’m trying to bring whatever it is I’ve managed to do in the past together in launching new, original comics of which GHOST PROJEKT is the first.

TD: That’s very interesting that you’ve gotten to kind of transcend the bounds of different genres and work in so many different aspects creatively. I actually really enjoyed “The Tripper” and thought that as a throwback to the kind of 80s slasher it succeeded on many levels as a film.

Since we are on the subject of horror in cinema, let’s explore that because I don’t want to dwell on it to long, but what is your take on the state of the genre right now? With so many remakes, and ‘gore porn’ films floating around out there right now do you think the genre is thriving or possibly parodying itself at this point?

JH: You know, I’m of two minds on this. Like most people I know, I hate the remakes on principle as much as anything else. But I understand why they’re out there… and I’ve been involved with some myself at one point or another. When they’re done well, like with Aja’s “Hill Have Eyes” remake, we applaud… when they suck, we groan. I think the genre is doing fine though, overall. When we were first setting out to plot the movie that would become DARKNESS FALLS, horror wasn’t so hot. Nowadays it won’t go away. I don’t see how that could be a bad thing. Even if you hate everything you describe as being potentially self-parodying, there’s still plenty of material that makes it out there to appreciate.

Funny you mention the throwback thing. When I was watching the FRIDAY THE 13th remake, I was struck funny by the kids finding the marijuana field in the opening scene. I know they watched THE TRIPPER… which was so influenced by those early FRIDAY THE 13th sequels and which had that very setup in it.

TD: It all seems to come full circle that way doesn’t it? I too like quite a few of the remakes nowadays, but also see a lot to dislike, too. I’m actually one of the minority that like Rob Zombie’s Halloween for being what it was. I think it’s an important distinction to hold remakes and the original material separate from one another as pieces of art in order to fairly assess them.

So how did you find yourself in the field of film? Did that career present itself before or after you had established a name as an author in the comic book community?

JH: I actually went to film school and making movies has always been my pursuit. I had made a thesis film at the City College of New York called RAPSCALLIONS. It wasn’t horror. It was an edgy dramatic thing that ended up playing a bunch of fests and actually got distributed on video and I had a screening down the Tribeca Film Center here in Manhattan. My friend and frequent creative collaborator, Adam Pollina was the artist on a Marvel Comic called X-FORCE and he brought some Marvel editors down to the screening. They really enjoyed the movie and told me I should be writing for them, which I did!

So, anyway, I ended up writing a bunch of books for Marvel but I still wanted to make movies. So I started putting together a new short film. This one would be horror, about a little boy who loses his tooth and decides to try and catch the Tooth Fairy in the act only to learn there’s a terrible price to be paid when you don’t do what you’re supposed to and follow the rules. I went out to the San Diego Comic-con with my short script and a poster I’d put together to help market the idea. Just to show it around while I signed at the Marvel booth and did the panels and such like usual. At the show that year, I ended up meeting John Fasano and he loved the idea, told me I should be doing it as a feature and promptly brought my package and pitch to the attention of a company called Distant Corners who had a development deal with the newly formed Revolution Studios. They loved it as well and ended up both financing the ultra-low budgeted short film as well as hiring me to write the feature screenplay for the movie that would eventually be DARKNESS FALLS. I had written, I think, the first two drafts of that script and Revolution essentially picked the project up, brought me out to L.A. and sat me down in an office with Jonathan Liebesman, the rest of the producers and execs and extended my deal to include a third draft of the script. I hadn’t ever even been to Los Angeles before, but there I found myself. From there, the script ended up re-written a hundred times and the movie turned into what it became. But that’s how I really started doing this.

TD: Yes, ComiCon sure is a great time. Maybe I’ll even see you out there this year! So let’s talk “Ghost Projekt”. I recently previewed it, and I’m really excited for it. What can you tell us about the project?

JH: It’s a supernatural thriller and an old fashioned revenge ghost story that takes place in the former Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the Russians experimented with all sorts of weapons of mass destruction and that vast country is littered with former test sites, decaying laboratories and twisted victims of leaks, exposures and tests. The United States knew all about most of the insidious things they did over there. Hell, we did plenty of them ourselves. And, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, our Department of Defense ramped up efforts to help a stretched-thin Russian government catalog and contain loose materials that might make it onto the black market and into potential terrorists’ hands.

Enter Will Haley, the best American Weapons Inspector working abroad. When he’s called in to investigate a break-in at a crumbling, abandoned Siberian facility, he crosses paths with a beautiful Russian detective named Anya Romanova who’s investigating a string of murders linked to the super-secret research and development that went on here. They don’t know much about the work that was conducted, but they know operations went on here under the project name, “Dosvidanya” which is Russian for good-bye. Ever since the break-in, people attached to the old project have been turning up dead and Operativnik Romanova suspects one of project heads of using whatever mysterious materials were stolen from that lab to pick off his fellow scientists and administrators who worked on this illegal program in hopes of covering his tracks and avoiding prosecution for any war crimes committed under his watch.

Only it’s far more complicated from that. Something has been released from that lab, but it’s something far more deadly than any sort of biological or chemical weapon Will is used to cataloging and containing. And Konstantin is responsible for far worse than anything Anya suspects. The whole investigation leads them down a rabbit hole of state secrets, deadly sins and research into the most deadly weapon of supernatural design imaginable since the Nazi’s sought the Lost Ark of the Covenant before Indiana Jones could shut them down.

The story criss-crosses the snowy Russian continent as our heroes chase the stolen Dosvidanya materials from the Siberian Taiga to Moscow’s Red Square. It’s full of hauntings, killings and one mother of a battle scene that completely devastates– well, I’ll let you read it when it comes out. I might have said too much already! But suffice to say, lots of ugly, deadly things were kept hidden beneath the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. Nothing like a little sunlight to send the roaches scattering.

Be sure to stay tuned this week as we bring you the second part of my one-on-one with Joe where we talk in depth about his “GHOST PROJEKT”.

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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