The comic that should see release this later year is titled Forgotten Folklore: I Hunt Wolves. I’m very excited for this 4 issue series to come out for a few reasons. Not only will it add to my horror output, but it will be pretty different from my other comics, while also being familiar. Like Home Free, it is a road trip story with two female leads, but the vehicle of choice is a horse, and our main character is a bounty hunter. I didn’t even think of the Home Freesimilarity until just now to be honest as I Hunt Wolves was written a few years beforehand. I’ve done a lot of work over the last few months on this project with editor Paul Baumeister (thepullbox.com). While this was already a big story, it is even bigger now and has become a wild adventure. These are going to be big issues.
Another reason to be excited is that I’m reconnecting with Luigi Criscuolo for the project. Luigi & I previously worked on Getting Back to Normal together, which was a dramatic crime fiction graphic novel, but every time I see him posting his art on Instagram, it is action-based, and I thought that we really need to exploit that in a comic together, so here we are. Not only can Luigi capture action, but he can capture deep characterization from the characters he draws. This story is going to need someone who can do both gracefully, and just having started work on the pages right now, I cannot wait to see what he delivers! Eduardo Camacho, who has been lettering pretty much everything I’ve done in the last few years, will also return.
The third reason I’m very excited for these comics is the format I am releasing these in. They will be released in the magazine-size of comics like Creepy & Eerie, they will all be long in length (50+ pages), and the paper used for the releases will be a newsprint paper (Or something close to it. I’m waiting on samples). The first issue will be the longest issue of the story at 56 pages, but where the others may not match that length, they will be made up for with extra content like you would find in horror comics from the past. I’m not going to get into details here as I am still figuring things out, but there may be other surprises as well, just can’t set it all in stone quite yet. These comics will also be released in B&W.
If all goes well, this will be a style I plan to do with the next few Forgotten Folklore releases, but those involve a bit of explanation that we can get into down the road (I Hunt Wolves will probably take about 2 years of work in all). Lets just say I have at least the next 5 – 6 years of Forgotten Folklore planned right now, and if you think I Hunt Wolves sounds cool, just wait.
Of course, I couldn’t leave you hanging without some kind of visual. Here I introduce you to Bonnie Beltz, bounty hunter and all-around badass, in her initial character design:
Thank you for reading. We’ll talk soon!
– John Kratky
