DH: What prompted you to put together this anthology?
SA: I love anthologies, horror anthologies in particular. With the massive Hauntings anthology coming out, I wanted a more inexpensive anthology to go along with it which would more directly tie together the horror line, in particular those titles that didn't make it into Hauntings.
DH: Did the different creators come to you at various times with ideas for one-shots and you decided to combine them into one book or did you set out to get stories specifically for this project?
SA: No, when we got the idea to do the anthology, I looked at what was coming up in the line, and which books would fit together for the one-shot. Cal (McDonald) and The Goon are two of the most popular horror books right now, and Tales of the Vampires comes out the month after the one-shot, so it seemed a good mix of established properties and a new book that will have some buzz around it.
DH: So the lineup for Drawing on Your Nightmares consists of a Cal McDonald story set in Vegas, The Goon story deals with The Goon and his eight-armed poker buddy named Spider, but what can you let slip about the Tales of the Vampires story written by Brett Matthews?
SA: Well, all the stories revolve around Vegas or gambling, and this one is set in Vegas, with a grifter trying to take advantage of a young woman who's obviously a little more worldly than she tries to let on. It's all about how much of a monster a regular person can be. Brett worked with Joss for a long time on Angel, Buffy, and ultimately wrote for Firefly before it went away. Now he's doing work for Marvel, some Spider-Man books, and we teamed him with Sean Phillips for this. Sean turned in a really stunning job. Everything I've done with Sean in the last couple years, he's surprised me with a new art style. This one is really interesting. So, artistically, it rounds out the book nicely. Eric's very traditional in his approach, Ben is post modern in a real Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood direction, and Sean is just jazzing around in ways you don't usually see in comics.
DH: Are the stories within Drawing on Your Nightmares stand alone stories or do they tie into the storylines in each series?
SA: They stand alone, each one is totally complete. The Goon story involves the regular cast of Goon characters, but you don't need to know Spider's history to understand why they call him Spider. He's a spider.DH: What's your take on the current state of horror comics in the comic book industry and where does the Drawing On Your Nightmares Halloween 2003 Special fit in?
SA: I think horror comics are always in short supply, that if they're done right people really like them, and that people who don't normally read comics would read more comics if there were better horror comics. Horror has a long and wonderful tradition in the comics industry. I've always wanted to focus my energies there, and now that Cal is a hit, and Hellboy is a bigger hit than ever, I took the opportunity to build a whole line around it.
DH: In the previous question, you specifically pointed out Cal McDonald and Hellboy as examples of the horror line. Now, I'm simplifying things greatly with this next statement, but both of those books, while great books in their own right, pretty much deal with duking it out with monsters. Obviously, some horror encompasses monster-bashing but what plans do you have to address other forms of horror (psychological, gothic, gore, etc.) with this line?
SA: Milkman Murders. That's the book which addresses real horror, real gutwrenching, moral horror, in its ugliest form. When I talk to people in-house about that book, some of them get really fidgety, and that's what I like. I know that book is going to take people by surprise, because it's written by nice little Joe Casey, who has a rep for writing great mainstream comics, the big franchise characters. But he is full of surprises.
The next Devil's Footprints series deals with the same kind of visceral yet emotional horror that the first one dealt with -- human emotions pushed to their limit, combined with big evils, moral weakness, etc. Tales of the Vampires, knowing Joss, is going to get into some of that area in some of the stories. The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings and the Book of Witchcraft will give you a sampling of some more gothic stuff. You'll get smatterings of gore along the way, of course, because Cal is pretty bloody, The Goon can be. It's a pretty well-rounded line of horror books, but it's comics, so there's definitely a lot of monsters running around.
DH: The timing for this one-shot is obviously planned to coincide with Halloween but do you have plans to do more, perhaps at other times of the year? Surely good horror comics shouldn't be confined to All Hallow's Eve!
SA: I don't know if there'll be more called Drawing on Your Nightmares, but we will be doing another anthology just like this for Free Comic Book Day next year, although it will highlight completely different titles.
DH: If someone picks up the Drawing On Your Nightmares Halloween 2003 Special, will they find a good summation of what Dark Horse's horror line is all about? Or do you think it's harder to pin down?
SA: By summation do you mean an explanation or an example? Because the contents of the anthology do sum up the line pretty effectively, but there won't be anything in there from me telling people what the line is. I think it is hard to put it into words, but as people see more and more of the books, it will become quite obvious what we're doing. It's a fun, diverse selection of horror, which never takes itself TOO seriously.
DH: You also edited last year's Reveal anthology where you managed to dig up a Pablo Picasso comic strip so here's a silly question for you: If you could reanimate either Edgar Allen Poe or H.P. Lovecraft and have one of them write a story for the Drawing On Your Nightmares Halloween 2003 Special, who would you choose? And who would you have to draw it?
SA: I'd choose Poe, and I'd want either Mignola or P. Craig Russell to draw it. Which is a self-serving thing to say, because we are talking to Craig about a Poe project ...