Indie Edge Creator Spotlight: Joe Hill
Oct 12, 2019
PREVIEWSworld: Please tell us a bit about yourself!
Joe Hill: My Twitter profile says that I wrote the novel NOS4A2 — basis for the AMC show of the same name — and Locke & Key (soon to be a show on Netflix). The profile doesn't say that my first concert was KISS, or that my favorite movie is JAWS, or that I'm married to a brilliant U.K.-based editor… but all those things are also true.
PREVIEWSworld: What are your favorite projects you’ve contributed to over the past decade?
Joe Hill: I've been creating the world of Locke & Key (Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft TP / JUN090991) with my soul bro Gabriel Rodriguez since 2007, and it's never been anything less than a total blast! But then, all of the comics I've worked on have been so much fun it almost seems silly to imagine this could be an actual job!
PREVIEWSworld: What are you currently working on?
Joe Hill: I stepped away from the day job of writing novels to spend a year as a full-time comics guy. At the moment I'm doing my best “Matt Fraction” impersonation by juggling four titles at once: Dying is Easy for IDW (Issue #1 / OCT190712), Plunge, Sea Dogs, and Basketful of Heads (Issue #1 / AUG190432) for DC’s “Hill House Comics” imprint. (Don't tell anyone but I'm also scripting new Locke & Key comics on the side!) And I'm curating other titles for DC’s pop-up “Hill House Comics” imprint: The Low, Low Woods (Dec. 2019) by the amazing Carmen Maria Machado and Dani, a heart-stopping freak-fest called Daphne Byrne (Jan. 2020) by Kelley Jones and Laura Marks, and the chilling Dollhouse Family (offered this month in DC PREVIEWS) by Lucifer veterans, Peter Gross and Mike Carey.
PREVIEWSworld: What fun titles are you reading?
Joe Hill: I never miss an issue of Saga (Vol. 1 DLX HC / SEP140591) or Curse Words (Vol. 1 TP / MAY170612) or Criminal (Vol. 1: Coward TP / NOV140569)! I've also been thrilling to the first few years of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant (Vols. 1-3: 1937-1942 HC Box Set / SEP171630). It's impossible to read it and not feel a little like comics peaked with Foster's work in the ’30s and ’40s and have a been going downhill ever since! Also, you know what's a somewhat overlooked graphic novel from recent history? 4 Kids Walk into a Bank (HC / JAN191666). Great one. Not to be missed!
EDGE ESSENTIALS
Pick up these books to learn more about Joe Hill’s Indie Edge style!
In part 1 of Dying is Easy, Carl Dixon is on the verge of comedy superstardom and he got there the dirty way: by stealing jokes. He's got a killer act, an ugly past, and more enemies than punch-lines. So when someone asks Syd Homes how much it would cost to have Dixon killed, Syd isn't surprised in the slightest. He's already got a figure in mind...
This is the story of June Branch, a young woman trapped with four cunning criminals who have snatched her boyfriend for deranged reasons of their own. Now she must fight for her life with the help of an impossible 8th-century Viking axe that can pass through a man's neck in a single swipe-and leave the severed head still conscious and capable of supernatural speech.
Each disembodied head has a malevolent story of its own to tell, and it isn't long before June finds herself in a desperate struggle to hack through their lies and manipulations... racing to save the man she loves before time runs out.
Plus, in the premiere chapter of the backup story "Sea Dogs," which sails across all the Hill House Comics titles!
