Staff Pick (June 10): Richard Matheson’s Kolchak The Night Strangler

Kolchak the Nightstalker is one of those television series that has really stuck with me over the years. Whether it was because the series was the original “X-Files / Fringe” or due to Darren McGaven’s charismatic portrayal of Carl Kolchak or simply the impressionable young mind craving something scary, I was hooked on this classic show from an early age. Going back and watching them again after all these years I realized that the two original Kolchak movies which preceded the weekly series were far and above the best of the bunch. At the time in the early 1970s both the original and sequel TV movies were among the highest rated shows on television with good reason. They were genuinely scary despite the low budget and made you feel like it just might be possible that the strange man down the road could very well be a vampire or ageless homicidal monster.

Kolchak the Night Strangler was the second movie to be released and was written by one of the most creative minds of 20th century. Richard Matheson, who wrote such notable novels as I am Legend and What Dreams May Come, was responsible for the screenplay which sent Carl Kolchak into the under-city catacombs beneath Seattle in search of a monstrous killer. This month the folks at Moonstone have unearthed that original Matheson script and are creating a companion comic book that brings those frighteningly original words to life. Combined with atmospheric interior art by Amin Amat and a pair of phenomenal covers by Timothy Lantz and E.M. Geist, this new Kolchak book is the perfect show piece for any vintage media collector. I honestly can’t wait to see this book in print and re-live a little bit of my youth with a beautifully rendered story of the original horror investigator!

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