With its publication in México, as part of Hill House Comics, we recovered this writing where Joe Hill talks about the creation of Plunge.
My first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published by William Morrow over a decade ago and now I can admit that when I wrote it, I always envisioned it as a John Carpenter movie. The story centered on a battered heavy metal musician in his sixties, in the twilight of his career, who wasted his time buying ghoulish artifacts on the Internet. I saw a gray-haired Kurt Russell in motorcycle boots and the thick beard he sported in The Thing. It would have been perfect for the role. He once played Elvis, and the hero of my novel, Judas Coyne, was the Elvis of heavy metal.
Does that make Heart-Shaped Box a fan fiction-style work? I guess so.
Michael Chabon says that most writers secretly compose fan fiction. Everyone who writes a detective novel hopes to regain the magic of reading Sherlock Holmes for the first time. Horror novel writers often secretly try to write their own Stephen King novel. Or make up your own John Carpenter movie, as the case may be.
Hill House Comics, Joe Hill and Plunge
When Mark Doyle invited me to develop my own horror label, it was always assumed that I would write some titles myself. I had one, Basketful of Heads, that I had been thinking about for years (I even dared to write the first issue in 2010, but it wasn’t ready yet).
However, Plunge, as you will see in the next note, came out of nowhere. What got me excited was the opportunity to tell a story about the kind of closed-lipped, cold-eyed arctic cowboys that inhabited Carpenter’s The Thing and made that movie so fast-paced. I thought I could do that and introduce something new along the way: a love story. And I did it.
But it was not the love story I expected. He imagined that Moriah Lamb would fall in love with one of the lanky and intrepid Carpenter. It did not. Instead, it was a love story between brothers … who see in each other an absolutely safe last line of defense.
The art of Stuart Immonen
It really had to be Stuart Immonen who was in charge of the pencils in this case, and we were very lucky to have him. If Plunge is a success, the credit goes almost exclusively to Stuart, who has made every page stand out with his graceful compositions and emotionally nuanced characters. He saw the same story as me, but better. I never felt that the scripts were up to the quality of their art. He carried Plunge on his shoulders for more than 100 pages. Thanks, Stu.
Then we had Dave Stewart’s cool palette of grays and greens and his rugged, wet pinks to electrify the art and make these images pop off the page. I have been a fan of David for decades; not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would get to work with one of the most imaginative colorists in comic history. Deron Bennett presented the lines in such a way as to delight the reader without ever interfering with the action.
Editor Mark Doyle kept my scripts from getting out of hand and kept the book on track every time he nearly lost it. I was very lucky to be part of this team. Thanks guys.
Either way, this is where it started … with a late night email to Mark. The final story moved away from this original proposal in the process of becoming its own, but I think it’s better that way. Also, we never got to the oil barrels in Derleth. I guess we’ll have to write a sequel one day.
Joe Hill, July, 2020
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DC Black Label – Hill House Comics: Plunge
Immerse yourself in terror!
In 1983, a state-of-the-art drillship, the Derleth, vanished near the Arctic Circle. Decades later, he began to send out a distress signal …
Tracing the signal to a remote atoll in the Bering Strait, the Rococo oil company hires the Carpenter brothers and their salvage crew to investigate the ghost ship. They are accompanied by a marine biologist and a company executive, and together they set sail on a grim mission to learn the reason behind the disappearance and recover the bodies of the crew… But they will soon discover that the men of the Derleth are not dead!
Although, they are not quite … alive either.
In this bloody and surreal celebration of ’80s horror, Plunge reunites Joe Hill (NOS4A2, Locke & Key) and Stuart Immonen (The Amazing Spider-Man, Superman: Secret Identity) for a deep underwater exploration of unfathomable terrors. Collect all six issues of the miniseries along with exclusive sketches and commentary.
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