#oni-lion forge publishing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cryptofmadness · 2 months

Text

Interview: Hunter Gorinson (Oni Press/EC Comics Imprint)

Interview conducted by Chet Reams

Hunter Gorinson is the President and Publisher at Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group, Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group own Oni Press, who are printing and co-publishing the new EC Comics imprint titles beginning Summer 2024! Crypt of MADness Publisher/Editor-In-Chief Chet Reams reached out for an interview and Hunter was kind enough to accept the invitation… This interview was conducted May 2, 2024, so it’s “hot off the press!”

Hunter Gorinson: Nice to meet you! Chet Reams: …Nice to meet YOU! …How did the EC relaunch come about ? Gorinson: First and foremost, I’ve been a lifelong EC fan. I got introduced to it probably when I was 6 or 7 years old and it kind of totally blew a hole in my mind as to what I thought comics could be. I knew that they were ‘classic comics’. At the time I thought they were from the ‘70s or something. This was in the early ‘90s. I didn’t realize they were from the ‘50s. They seemed even much more contemporary than the Silver Age Marvel and DC Comics I read . So that led to me being, not only an obsessive EC Comics fan for my entire teenage years as I progressed through my different levels of fandom, also continuing just to notice and spot the kind-of-pervasive-influence of EC in pop culture… So you see the logo for the band, The Cramps or Electric Frankenstein or something -And you realize like, oh, like music’s tethered into this, comedy’s tethered into this, horror movies are tethered into this ! It only deepened my fascination and appreciation of EC. …The comic book industry is actually a relatively small place. I’ve worked at several publishers. My first job was Marvel. I worked at a company called Valiant for quite a while. I worked at Boom Studios… So I’d met Corey and Cathy Mifsud who are respectively William Gaines’ daughter and grand-son in my travels over the years. I had developed a friendship with them. We’d worked on some stuff, in passing, previous to this coming about. Once I found myself in the Publisher chair at Oni in … I think it was late 2022 … December 2022; The first thing at the top of my mind was ‘I wonder if there’s anything we could do with EC?! Now, is the time, in my opinion, for us to do something..!’ and fortunately they were quite tolerant, patient and receptive to my impassioned, phosphorus pitch that ‘We should do this!’ Then one thing led to another, and I’ve essentially been working on this since Day One of me stepping in as publisher at Oni Press.

Reams: Why are you introducing new series titles and new hosts for it? Gorinson: Yeah, it was actually part of my original idea. ..I think if this was another comic book publisher.. what you’d be getting is Tales From the Crypt “#1” with, probably an exaggeration to say 197 variant covers, but not uncommon for big books to launch with like 100+ variant covers now! Any other publisher would probably be “I’m gonna go with the tried and true safe thing. We’re going to do Tales from the Crypt again….” For me, I look back at the intense period of creativity that is the EC Comics “New Trend” … It’s like a ‘Marvel’ - no pun intended - that those books were essentially created between 1949/1950 and part of 1955. It’s 5 years of intense creativity from William Gaines, Al Feldstein, Wally Wood, Johnny Craig and on down the line… …The ‘ending’ of EC is one of the great unresolved question marks at in comics history: What could have been??? I’ve kind of always felt like there’s an entire alternate universe out there somewhere, where the Comics Code Authority doesn’t happen, EC continues to publish, MAD stays a comic!! And instead of Stan Lee coming in to take a ‘last shot’ at Marvel Comics in 1962 and 1963 to do superheroes and see if that’s a thing that ‘can work’ and reinvent that genre, that never happens !!… If EC continued to chug along and things like crime, horror, war, science-fiction, satire continued to be the dominant trends in the industry … that could have continued decade, after decade, after decade. The ‘thesis’ behind the line of books that we’re putting together at Oni is… Why ‘look backwards’ when we could ‘look forwards’ into what EC could have become ? And also, just to be blunt about it: Like, no matter what we do, we’re going to be compared against the original books, which is maybe the highest ‘high watermark’ that comics has ever accomplished. I think that there’s 40+ perfect issues of Tales From The Crypt. Why would I want to make that comparison any more difficult by trying to ‘replicate’ them or ‘compete’ with them?? I think the original EC books should stand on their own … as they have very successfully for 70+ years. And we are thinking something that’s new, and in the same spirit and energy and intensity, but is an evolution and not a direct continuation or imitation of what came before.

Reams: So, is there going to be ANY use of the GhouLunatics inside the new ones, any ‘callbacks’ besides the variant covers that you have [announced]? Gorinson: Shhh… I’m smiling right now… Here’s what I will say… “Spoilers, my man!” I can’t give away too many ‘spoilers’, but there will be a ‘lineage,’ and hopefully, ‘continuity’ with what has come before ..

Reams: What about the EC imprint beyond comic book media, the Anthology Style. Are there plans for .. “beyond comic book media”? Gorinson: …The order of the day is ‘Let’s make the best possible comics right now!’ EC, as I said, has a pervasive influence beyond comics - if any of that happens down the line - which is definitely possible.. we’ll be happy, and ‘beating the drum real hard.’ Right now, as the order stands, we have our work cut out for us in trying to not do an ‘EC imitation’, not do something that’s ‘EC adjacent’ - we’re making EC Comics. Like, I refuse to put the Oni logo on these books because I think it’s ‘sacrilegious’… I consider these to be EC Comics. They’re not part of the ‘Original Canon’ obviously, but we’re trying to embody that to the greatest extent possible. … We’ve got to make sure that the stories are good, that the covers are good, that these books can stand on their own … I don’t want this to be a 6-issue thing. We have a plan that extends for years into the future. Hopefully we can get to a place where you have a couple EC Comics reliably on shelves, every couple times a month, for the foreseeable future. You know what I’m saying? Reams: Yeah, like just like the “New Trend” ! Gorinson: Every two weeks… yeah!

Reams: …That kind of covers one of the others I had which was ‘What do you think EC’s prior missteps were, with comic reboots, and how do you avoid such pitfalls?… Gorinson: I mean a LOT has changed… SO MUCH has changed since 1954. There are weird echoes and synchronicities between what American culture and comic books are going through then, and now… Which I think makes this the right time to do this for a lot of reasons! But I do think ‘off-the-bat’: the audience is matured. …I don’t think we’re gonna sell Epitaphs From The Abyss #1 to 8-year-olds. You know what I mean? Fact: 8-year-olds were reading Tales from the Crypt… but that probably won’t be the mandate here. I don’t think we’ll be accused of “engendering juvenile delinquency,” hopefully…

Reams: What about having “preachies”-type stories, kind of like with the old Shock SuspenseStories “preachies”? Gorinson: You mean stories with a more socio-political, cultural … ? Reams: Modern social stories, though! Gorinson: Yeah, 100%! I think that’s actually integral to what makes EC work. One of the things… I hesitate to call it a ‘formula’, but there’s a ‘voodoo’ to the way that EC worked! …This is where I think another comic book publisher doing ‘EC books’ in 2024 would be, ‘yeah, we’re just going to do the horror one. That was the most popular!’ But EC had this quadruple-helix of horror, satire, war, science fiction that all weaved together and made a really compelling mix of genres and tones. In terms of the socio-political content - That’s the other thing, ….if you want to go read an EC pastiche or homage story right now - you’ve got a million ways to do that! But, what all of those homages and pastiches have failed to do is… …It’s really easy to do a story about ‘Christmas Eve. There’s a killer in a Santa Claus costume who chops off somebody’s head on Christmas morning. It opens to a box under the tree and his dad’s head is in it!’ or whatever could be perceived as ‘EC-adjacent’. Reams: They had one [a story] very similar to that… [“And All Through The House….”] Gorinson: I think there’s a Creepshow that’s very similar to that, etc.. There’s tons of stuff that came after EC, where they embraced the violence and the gore, the shocking quality of ‘your neighbor next door could be a monster!!’ It doesn’t have to be Frankenstein or the Wolfman or whatever… but those homages often fail to capture .. that strong socio-cultural-political ‘edge’ and not every EC story has that but some of them do.. .. It’s an important part of the mix.. they’ll definitely be part of that brew from early on of what we’re doing, especially with Epitaphs From The Abyss! I was talking to Corey Mifsud about this. It’s not a straight ‘one-to-one’ equivalency with Tales from the Crypt or The Vault of Horror. It’s in the lineage of what those stories were like, but there’s also a little bit of Crime SuspenStories and there’s a lot of Shock-Suspense in Epitaphs From The Abyss. Just people being ‘terrible’ to one another. …There’s a lot of that in Epitaphs!

Reams: Can you tell us any other creatives’ names that are going to be contributing to EC’s new books? Gorinson: Yeah, we put out a big old list of folks initially. There’s some true comics A -listers in there. Jason Aaron. I don’t think you guys have seen.. Jason’s first story is going to run in Epitaphs From The Abyss #2.. Issue #1 is Brian Azzarello; Stephanie Phillips; A really talented writer named J. Holtham. And, Chris Condon plus Peter Krause ; Vlad Legostaev - who’s a phenomenal Ukrainian comic artist… Who am I forgetting? There’s two… I don’t have PREVIEWS in front of me! Reams: There’s Phil Hester .. and Jorge Fornes. Gorinson: Jorge Fornes drew Batman with Tom King, most recently did “Danger Street” with Tom King - INCREDIBLE artist, perfect for what we’re looking for with the EC mold. And of course Phil Hester - industry legend, deeply influenced by EC. The minute we made this announcement, Phil was kind enough to reach out and be like “put me on this..!” I don’t want to spoil too much … there’s a bunch of people who didn’t get announced yet .. the lineup for Cruel Universe #1 we haven’t shown anyone yet. It’ll be out next week … And then Epitaphs From the Abyss #2 has, in my opinion, one of the most impressive lineups of creators. I never dreamed that I would publish a book with these five creators on Epitaphs #2 - One of them is writing AND illustrating their own story, which is phenomenal! It is truly a “Cavalcade of Riches”, my friend. I’m gonna be excited to share it with everybody!

Reams: What about veteran ones like Angelo Torres, Kelley Jones, Ralph Reese, people like that? Is it just gonna be newer people or are you gonna bring on older people? Gorinson: I have not yet had a chance to speak to Angelo Torres; I would love to. I don’t know what his interest is …to be honest with you, it makes me a little afraid to pitch Angelo the idea of drawing a ‘quote-unquote’ “EC story” because I’m sure he will have feelings about that, but obviously a huge appreciator of his work. But in terms of veteran talents from the comic book industry and also people who were “Generation Two” after the EC crew. .. Reams: Like, from CREEPY/EERIE? Gorinson: Yeah, who either apprenticed, knew or worked alongside some of the original EC creators.. I’ve viewed it as incredibly important to hopefully get some of those people along for the ride…Phil Hester kind of falls into that box - he’s been doing this for 30 years at this point. There’s a couple names coming that you will be like… ‘WHOA!’… Specifically, in Epitaphs From The Abyss #2!

Reams: So a big part of EC, original EC, was the artwork-to-story balance. You had “Ghastly” Graham Ingels, you had Jack Kamen, Reed Crandall: very detailed/Pulp-like artwork!; Matched with very Prose-like writing. In the modern landscape, how is that gonna go… Gorinson: Yeah, there’s certain rules because.. what you don’t want to do, the last thing we want to do. … …I should give a shout-out to our editor and chief Sierra Hahn who’s my partner in crime on this entire thing! She’s a phenomenally talented comic book editor, has been doing this for close to 20 years, worked previously at Dark Horse - as well as at Boom Studios where we first crossed paths. Me and her have kind of debated and pushed-and-pulled over ‘what is the ‘bend it, don’t break it’ approach to the EC formula?’ …The last thing I wanted to do was find one-to-one artist equivalents. We have to have a Graham Ingels - kind of super hyper-detailed, gross, drippy-features guy! …We didn’t want to find ‘imitators.’ Part of what makes William Gaines one of the greatest comic book editors of all time, probably in competition with Stan Lee for the single greatest editor ever in the history of the medium, was his ability to pick artists and then let them ‘do their thing.’ That’s kind of the mandate that we have too, which we want super-capable storytellers because the amount of information ..The last thing we wanted to do was find ‘direct imitators’. Each original EC artist had their own definitive style; the one thing that they shared was a really powerful, clean economy of storytelling! Honestly, it’s a lot easier to draw a 22-page comic or an entire 4-or-6-issue arc of a comic book, than it is a 6-or-8-page story. It’s very hard to ‘hide your mistakes’ in a 6-page story.. ..What I think we ‘rightly diagnosed’ that we ‘needed’ is extremely clean, powerful storytellers - instead of someone who’s going to draw a horror host in a cool pose …plenty of guys can draw a horror host in a cool pose! I don’t know many who can do one of the most disgusting shocking 6-page stories that you’ve read all year! It’s a pretty short list!! So that was the mandate.. Gorinson: …In terms of the actual story-construction, there’s certain things that we’re going to retain - obviously all the stories have to be self-contained! Can’t do the “Dark Horse Presents” thing, or whatever, “2000 AD” where the story is continued from issue-to-issue. Don’t want to do that, it breaks the EC formula! The stories, where we can, they’re all probably going to have something similar to that original half-page Splash introduction … have a nice cool title treatment that introduces each one. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Leroy lettering, the books have to have this! We don’t have a Leroy Machine, can’t do it ‘exactly’ but we’re gonna letter the books in the same style, because when you see that - you know you’re reading an EC Comic. You know what I mean? It’s essential … Gorinson: We released a piece of promotional material today, like these little pre-order cards that are going to comics stores, that has the Leroy lettering on it… Gorinson: We released a new cover… for Epitaphs from the Abyss #2, by an artist named Adam Pollina, it’s a guy getting a nail hammered into his head in the true kind-of-Crime SuspenStories tradition. Reams: Is that in the PREVIEWS catalogue, or…? Gorinson: This is for Epitaphs # 2, so no one’s seen it yet. I think it’s on Bleeding Cool right now if you go check it out.

Reams: I’m gonna ask a few more questions…What themes can we look for during the future issues? Like will there be war themes? Satire-comic type themes? Or just sci-fi and horror? Gorinson: Adam [Pollina] drew one of my favorite comics when I was a kid.. “Rise of Apocalypse” from Marvel in the ‘90s. And then he went on to be a fashion designer. He’s a very accomplished artist. Gorinson: In terms of other genres, yeah, that’s part of the ‘mandate’. Starting things, we didn’t want to start with like, “Here’s 5 books - go get them!” We’re doing something radical - I’m well aware that we’re doing something provocative, possibly controversial, definitely treading on sacred ground by even inhabiting the EC logo on new books, not by the original creators. Now that we have people’s attention, we have to gain their trust. Part of the idea was ‘let’s start in a familiar place…’ with anthologies in the two kind of most central EC genres, horror and science fiction. But as I said, I don’t believe EC should be limited to that alone .. I think part of the success of EC was it had a broader tableau of storytelling that it did .. I’ve teased this out a little bit for retailers, and won’t say too much, but I will say that the third book we do - will be in a genre that EC told stories in, but never did a full book about. Reams: What is that? Picto-Fiction??! Gorinson: I don’t think I’m gonna be running back to Picto-Fiction anytime soon!!! But in 2025, we’ll also do something that is not an anthology! So, I’ve teased enough… Reams: Will there be collected volumes,? Gorinson: Oh 100%! Each of these will get collected as a graphic novel. Reams: Will they be hardcover or softcover? Gorinson: …It’s a little early for us to make a definitive call on that - I think the ‘rough draft ‘of the answer to that question is, We’ll probably collect the first 5-or-so issues of these series as softcover graphic novel, then once we have a larger group of them done, we’ll collect them in the big oversized deluxe hardcover format. We’re gonna see how it’s gonna go.

Gorinson: I don’t know if Cruel Universe will be like 12 issues or maybe it’s a shorter series and then we rotate it, and then we bring Cruel Universe back… where we do a second Sci-Fi series; kind of like Weird Fantasy/Weird Science thing, and rotate through a couple of them. Don’t be surprised if we do that! We want to keep people on their toes a little bit. We also just want to keep the level of quality and consistency high with what we’re doing. Reams: Yes… Um, the Sci-Fi titles were historically the least-selling EC titles, but they were the most loved… Gorinson: Science fiction in today’s market … not that much has changed - the three most bankable things in comics are superheroes, horror and science fiction. There’s a lot of great stories in Weird Science and Weird Fantasy; that was always amongst one of my favorite books. Again, I wanted to do something that was important to the team at Oni -that we not just do horror. The minute that we landed on the title ‘Cruel Universe’, we knew we had something! ..They’re all kind of ‘functionally’ horror stories to some degree. They may not be ‘overtly horror’ about people getting killed or maimed or whatever, but they’re all terrifying and upsetting and deranged to some degree. You know what I mean?

Reams: Well, I think that’s most of the questions I had and it is now 30 minutes… Gorinson: Oh, you did it! Fantastic job, man. Reams: We got most of them done! Gorinson: That’s awesome… Anytime you have questions - Please feel free! Reams: Sure! Thanks so much!

#articles #May 2024 #EC Comics #Interviews #Oni Press #Epitaphs From The Abyss #Hunter Gorinson #Cruel Universe

1 note · View note