With Dynamite’s successful licensing of The Twilight Zone, it isn’t surprising that a comic book publisher would try to find a title for a horror anthology that would resonate as well. The only thing that might have more weight than Tales from the Darkside would be The Outer Limits, but that wouldn’t fit nearly so well with IDW’s creative team — Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, who previously did pretty well for IDW with a little thing called Locke & Key. The themed anthology allows the team to wander into different dark corners, and for being able to creep out modern audiences, I’ll stand by this statement that Hill is every bit as terrifyingly clever as his father, Stephen King. Look into this one…
From IDW:
Locke & Key fans will have reason to celebrate this summer when Joe Hill ([amazon text=NOS4A2&asin=0062200585], [amazon text=Wraith&asin=1613778988]) and Gabriel Rodríguez ([amazon text=Onyx&asin=1631405160]) unleash their latest horror series on the world. Tales from the Darkside sees the Eisner Award-winning team reunite on a comic-book revival of the horror anthology TV series of the same name.
The four-issue series will feature Hill’s re-imagining of Tales for a contemporary take on the cult classic. Structured to have the scope of [amazon text=Locke & Key&asin=1631401394] while exploring a vast, underlying mythology, Tales aims to unfold a cohesive universe made up of each individual issue. According to the creative team, these stories will draw inspiration from the TV series that it has spawned from while also taking a meta approach to the material.
Hill elaborated further on what his vision for the series is and what fans can expect from the too-good-for-TV story structure:
“This is the show that could’ve been,” says Hill. “The original Tales from the Darkside was a fun, bleak little spin on the Twilight Zone style anthology. My idea is to give readers a little more. Every story is meant to stand alone, but gradually, you will come to see how they all connect, to tell a single larger story.”
While Rodríguez will provide cover art for the series, joining the team will be Charles P. Wilson III (The Wraith) who will contribute variant covers.
“The universe that Joe is building here is wholly unique while still doing justice to the original show,” said Tales from the Darkside editor Michael Benedetto. “And having Gabriel collaborating with him again is the best we could have possibly hoped for. These guys have a proven track record, and this series will only serve to build on their reputations as excellent storytellers and masters of horror and suspense.”
Prepare to enter the ‘Darkside’ this June at your local comic shop – plenty of time to get caught up on Locke & Key before then!
