Cartoonist and filmmaker Patrick Horvath made a bloody splash in November with his first published comic book, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees. On the surface, it looks cute. Beneath the surface, it still is, but also horrifying. Publisher IDW hosted Horvath at L.A. Comic Con, and my timing was perfect. Walking by their booth about 20 minutes after his scheduled signing had ended, I asked if he was coming back the next day. The representative turned around to a guy eating a sandwich in the back and asked, “Patrick? You want to talk to the press?”
And so, the one person I’d have hoped to meet at the Con sat down with me to talk about his book. The second issue came out last week and yes, continues being great and chilling and for anthropomorphic animals, they’re all too recognizably human. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Derek McCaw: I don’t know if I want to call it the cutest or most disturbing book I’ve read all year.
Patrick Horvath: Both. We go with both. Thanks for stopping by! (laughs)
Derek: When did you realize the title was going to fit?
Patrick: It all came together rather quickly. 7 or 8 years ago, I was doing a doodle of this bear person walking through the woods with a bloody axe and overalls. I was just drawing it to draw it, you know? Then just immediately I thought, well, it would be kind of funny to have a bear serial killer or something. It would be really funny if this bear lived in this town and was an upstanding member of the community. Nobody assumed, and had just been living their dream in sort of children’s book town. Then immediately I was thinking of the Richard Scarry stuff.
And I had had “beneath the trees where nobody sees” stuck in my head since I was a teen, in the 90s. The first time I heard it was on a compilation of children’s songs.
Derek: I don’t think people realize how scary that song is, “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic.” I had the 45 when I was a little kid and played it over and over.
Patrick: Yeah, it always struck me as really sinister. When I came up with this bear, it was, oh yeah, beneath the trees where nobody sees. They play hide and seek as long as they please. This is the teddy bear’s picnic. It was so funny. And this was a LONG time ago.
All of that came together. The idea of giving the main character, who is a psychopath, an existential crisis came WAY later. That came way more recently. That was more around the past 5 years, 3 years maybe, when I was fleshing out the pitch a lot more.
The real guts of the story, all the in-between stuff, a lot of the different characters, etc. all came together when I fleshed out the pitch for IDW in 2021. Really recent as far as that goes.
Derek: Were they the first publisher you pitched it to?
Patrick: Yeah! This is my first book with a publisher, and I’m in my early 40s. This is my first Con. The response has been sort of overwhelming. I did not expect it to go over as well as it did, and I’m very grateful for it. But I’m also totally taken by surprise. It was a weird fluke that I ended up pitching to them.
I’ve pitched before, to other stuff, not this book. Other books with other writers, to Image and Skybound, all of them. Dark Horse and IDW way back when. Lots of no responses. But IDW Originals – that was new, brand new. Mark Doyle coming on was huge. They responded super well to this. They also supported it super well. It’s just been really lucky. I feel like tons of luck surrounding this. I’m just taking the ride as long as I can.
Derek: You have a full arc, will it be six issues?
Patrick: It will be six issues, and then it’s pretty much designed to be six and done, and it’s also designed to go further if it’s well received. It can most definitely go on in an interesting way. I designed it for both just to have that flexibility.
Derek: Either way, you’ve made a huge impact.
Patrick: At least with the first one, yeah. (laughs)
Derek: What’s your hope for the future of this, animation?
Patrick: Nothing yet, but I’m sure it’s in the works in terms of aspirations. I don’t know any of the goods on if this is going to turn into anything else.
It’s funny. I have a real Wile E. Coyote, trying not to look down right now mentality. I don’t want to jinx anything. All I’m doing is drawing and writing this book until March, I think. Then I’ll be done, and I’ll come out of my cave and see what’s going on in the rest of the world.
I don’t know what the life of this thing is. Again, I’m already surprised by how well it’s doing. People have come up and said very complimentary things and I love it, but it’s also just kind of flooring me.
Derek: Trying not to spoil anything, but there’s a creativity to your bear’s killing. My wife being a person who eats Peking Duck told me that’s EXACTLY how it’s served and I would have no idea. Is that going to be an element, you thinking of creative ways to portray animal slaughter?
Patrick: For sure. On one hand, they’re all anthropomorphic animals, right? I’m definitely letting their animals inform them as characters to a certain degree. Sometimes they’re playing against that, depending on what their animal is, what the story is, and what the character is. Their deaths are the same thing. I’m playing with expectations and against expectations. Some mixture of the two just to have fun with it.
One thing I have noticed is that any sort of weird detail you can stick into your book, it’s very well received by people that catch it. That’s the type of thing I’m leaning more into.
Derek: One thing worth mentioning is that your killer bear is female.
Patrick: Totally playing against type with that, for that very reason. I thought it would be interesting to have a serial killer who was against type. This woman is a psychopath. It’s very funny to get people’s perspectives on what Samantha’s deal is. She’s very solitary. At the same time, she has a semblance of a social life. It’s all constructed. It’s all a façade.
Derek: The feeling is that her family is a long-standing part of the community. Isn’t it her father’s hardware store?
Patrick: I will say this, without spoiling anything. I’m not spoiling anything, I’m raising questions. Maybe this should be for the extended (cut of the interview). Her family’s not around. Make of that what you will. (laughs maniacally)
Derek: We’ll end there. Thank you and best of luck on this book!
Just for fun, I’ve just discovered that Super7 has launched a line of Richard Scarry’s Busy World action figures, which means… you can kind of have a Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees playset…
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