Next week the final issue of The Strain #11 hits the shelves of comic shops everywhere as well as the digital ether of the Dark Horse digital store. Guillermo Del Toro's series has been a popular and exciting new take on vampires over the last year in the comics world and is even being looked at for a TV Show! We wanted to take a look back at the features that appeared on this blog to show a bit of the evolution of the series as it went from start to finish. If you haven't been reading this series, did you know you can get issue #1 for free in the digital store? It's a good way to get started, and see what you think. 

"Here's Mike Huddleston's first full sketch of one of the big, nasty vampires from The Strain. These vile creatures are very well described in the novels, and after tracking down an insane amount of references in the source material for Mike, he piled all that prose into his brain and this awesome monster is what came out when pencil hit paper."

"Assistant Editor Jim Gibbons has been working closely with Editors Sierra Hahn and Scott Allie alongside the creators of The Strain on all aspects of the coming comic. We asked him to share the process for the first cover and if the sketches and insights into this first issue don't get you excited, we're pretty sure that the plague already has you."

"Though our fully evolved vamps don't show up right off the bat, we still needed to get them designed early on for some of promotional images. Here's another great example of the careful thought and detail artist Mike Huddleston put into the look of our bloodsucking beasties. Taking cues and clues from the novel, here's Mike's interpretation and early thoughts on how the big nasty stingers and internal anatomy of our vampires works."

"You want to be scared? I mean, really scared? Well, you've come to the wrong place. This is an article about designing The Strain's inside front cover, which isn't very scary. Rather fun, actually. When a project like The Staincomes along, it's a blast to work on it. The imagery is so dramatic; it practically designs itself."

"We've shared a huge preview of The Strain with Comics Alliance this week to get folks stoked for the comics arriving on shelves in a couple weeks. Catch a glimpse of these two sketches and then head on over to Comics Alliance for the full preview and another sketch piece."

"For our final sketch preview of The Strain, let's take a look at how Mike Huddleston worked out some of the final details for transitioning these horrifying vampires from the prose page to the comic panel." 

"Acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and novelist Chuck Hogan bring their New York Times best-selling series of novels, the Strain Trilogy, to Dark Horse Comics with an ongoing adventure that takes a terrifying spin on the vampire genre."

"When a Boeing 777 lands at JFK International Airport and goes dark on the runway, the Center for Disease Control, fearing a terrorist attack, calls in Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and his team of expert biological-threat first responders. Only an elderly pawnbroker from Spanish Harlem suspects a darker purpose behind the event-an ancient threat intent on covering mankind in darkness."

"Artist Mike Huddleston creates a clear and disturbing version of Guillermo del Toro’s original world, and Lapham pulls no punches, knowing exactly when to let the artist do all the hard work and when it is time to adapt the dialogue to create an engaging and scary thriller. This means we get some gloriously nasty looking artwork straight out of someone’s twisted nightmares, coupled with believable characterisation."