Vault Comics is thrilled to announce THE AUTUMNAL, a terrifying new horror series by NYT bestselling author Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water, Trollhunters), rising star artist Chris Shehan, colorist Jason Wordie, and letterer Jim Campbell. THE AUTUMNAL is the first title under Vault’s 2021 NIGHTFALL horror imprint.
Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author, who, with Guillermo del Toro, co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year, and he has won two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler) and has been a Library Guild selection, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, Bram Stoker finalist, and more.
In THE AUTUMNAL, following the death of her estranged mother, Kat Somerville and her daughter, Sybil, flee a difficult life in Chicago for the quaint–and possibly pernicious–town of Comfort Notch, New Hampshire.
“In ten novels, I’d written about a lot of monsters, but most were humans, or lighthearted, or greatly sympathetic,” said Daniel Kraus. “I still had a hankering to create an original, frightening, supernatural thing that had a shot at being iconic. While discussing horror with friends, I stumbled upon the concept of fallen leaves being like stepping stones for some kind of forest monster — a pathway it could use to follow you home and so forth. It was such a visual idea to me that I thought it’d be the perfect story to be my comic debut. I’m a gigantic fan of EC Comics, but I wanted to go in the opposite direction here, and make something sophisticated and sad.
“I’ve been a devotee of folk horror since I saw The Wicker Man on late-night TV as a little kid,” continued Kraus, “and coming from a rural area, I’ve always been especially keyed into the isolating dread of small towns. You whiz by them on interstates in a flash, but you never really know what’s going on inside all those little houses, do you?”
“When you write novels without pictures, you have to be good at giving the reader strong visuals through your words, and Daniel is very good at that,” added Chris Shehan. “For this comic, I’m drawing the visuals (along with outstanding colorist Jason Wordie), but before I drew a single line, I could see this entire story in my head beautifully and that’s thanks to a great writer like Daniel. My goal with this book is to move you, scare you, make you laugh, and make you cry with my art. This story has haunted me in the best way and I’m excited and grateful to be able to pass that on to you.”
NIGHTFALL is Vault’s annual fall horror imprint. Every year as the weather turns brisk and autumn sets in, NIGHTFALL comes. As Vault continues its usual line, select new series introduced from September to December will bear the NIGHTFALL icon, promising genuine horror. Past NIGHTFALL titles include THE PLOT by Tim Daniel, Michael Moreci, and Joshua Hixson, and BLACK STARS ABOVE by Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha. More 2020 NIGHTFALL titles will be announced very soon.
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