Being one of Stephen King‘s children, author Joe Hill has a connection to the Creepshow franchise that goes back to its very beginning – in fact, Hill was in the original, classic 1982 film (watch it HERE) that was written by King and directed by George A. Romero. He’s the kid in the wraparound segments. Decades later, Hill’s stories By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain, Twittering from the Circus of the Dead, and Mums were brought to the screen in episodes of the Creepshow TV series on the Shudder streaming service. And now another one of his stories, Wolverton Station, is getting the Creepshow comic book treatment. The one shot comic book Creepshow: Joe Hill’s Wolverton Station is set to reach store shelves (and digital stores) on Wednesday, March 27th.
Comics Beat reports that Hill teamed up with Jason Ciaramella (C is for Cthulu) and Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin) to adapt his story Wolverton Station into an expanded format with new twists and turns… including a special appearance by The Creep! They tell the terrifying tale of a businessman whose commute is about to get a lot hairier when his train makes an unexpected stop at “Wolverton Station”!
Hill had this to say about the project: “I’m always glad to renew my acquaintance with The Creep and reconnect with the gleeful gross-outs that are the hallmark of Creepshow in all its manifestations, from film to TV to comics. I wrote Wolverton Station over a decade ago, working longhand while I traveled the UK by train for a book tour, and right from the start I knew I was writing a Creepshow kind of thing. It’s the story of a cut-throat dealmaker, someone who thinks of himself as quite a wolf, running afoul of creatures whose fangs are in no way metaphorical. At its dark heart, it’s a fairy tale — not one of the modern fairy tales, the sort safely sanitized by Disney for mass consumption, but the older kind of fable, the sort with teeth. That kind of story is The Creep’s stock-and-trade and so it feels exactly right that the story should be adapted for Creepshow’s pestilent pages.“
Ciaramella added: “If I had to pick a favorite genre, the mashup of horror and comedy (Is there a name for this? Horromedy? Comorror?) would almost certainly be at the top of my list. So, obviously, Creepshow has been something I’ve loved for basically my entire life. Wolverton Station marks my third contribution to the Creepshow legacy, and my second with both Joe and Michael. With Joe, it was a collaboration on a Tom Savini-directed episode of Creepshow for Shudder called By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain. With Michael, though he didn’t know it at the time, it was a special Creepshow-themed set of Magic: The Gathering cards produced by Wizards of the Coast. I love playing in this blood-slicked universe of twists and hilarity and surprise endings, but when I get to do it with a couple of talented creeps like Michael and Joe, well, that’s just something extra special, innit*? *This is not a typo and Jason is not English. He did, however, have a jolly good time using the word in his script for Wolverton Station.“
And Walsh told Comics Beat, “I’ve been a fan of Joe and Jason’s work for a long time, so to say I was excited to collaborate would be an understatement. Drawing a terrifying tale tinged with black comedy is right up my alley, and getting to work with editor Alex Antone again has been a dream. I can’t wait for all the horror fans out there to get a bloody taste of what we’ve been brewing up.“
And the quotes don’t stop there. FX legend Greg Nicotero, who is the creative supervisor on the Creepshow TV show, had some praise for Hill: “Joe Hill continues to astound me! From Horns to Fireman and now this latest story, he’s created fantastic scenarios and places his beautifully crafted characters smack in the middle of them! I love everything he writes and am honored to continue our fruitful collaboration.“
Creepshow: Joe Hill’s Wolverton Station is coming our way from Skybound. The company’s editorial director Alex Antone said, “We’re over the moon to have the incredible Joe Hill join the party. Wolverton Station is the perfect Creepshow-style tale of comeuppance, and the work he’s delivering with Jason and Michael is making us all howl.“
Are you a fan of Creepshow and/or Joe Hill’s work? Will you be picking up a copy of Creepshow: Joe Hill’s Wolverton Station? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Walsh is providing the artwork for the main cover, but there will also be a couple variant covers: an open to order cover by Gabriel Rodriguez and a 1:10 incentive cover by illustrator Maria Wolf. The covers can be seen at the bottom of this article. To check out sample pages from the comic book, click over to Comics Beat.