Dark Shadows was a supernatural-themed daytime soap opera that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, but still holds a place in the hearts of many fans. Barnabas Collins and his brood have lived on in books, movies and through streaming services over the years, bringing new fans to Collinsport, Maine — a city inhabited by vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, warlocks and more.
Hermes Press has kept the story alive through a series of novels and reprints of previous comics, but now they’re returning to the world of Dark Shadows with an original graphic novel that moves the story into the present. Craig Hurd-McKenney, writer of the recent Station Grand from Oni Press, and Jok, artist of the under-appreciated In Hell We Fight with John Layman at Image Comics, are bringing these characters back to the forefront and continuing the drama that made the show so popular.
Here’s the description of Curse of Dark Shadows:
Carolyn Stoddard-Hawkes made a deathbed promise to her mother. But, in order for Carolyn to complete that promise, she must rely on the one person in the world she doesn’t want to see: vampire Barnabas Collins. His return home after an extended period away sets in motion a chain of events that will change the Collins family forever. Can Carolyn and her cousin David survive the newly-awakened CURSE OF DARK SHADOWS, or will Barnabas be the end of the Collins family line?
The project is currently up on Kickstarter, and Hermes Press has a small number of limited edition copies at the San Diego Comic-Con. They’ll also host a panel this afternoon at 3 p.m. Pacific at the con, featuring Hurd-McKenney and actress Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie on the show and will join the conversation remotely.
I spoke with Hurd-McKenney about the project, his history with the show and working again with his longtime collaborator Jok.
I know you’ve been a fan for awhile, but what drew you to Dark Shadows as a storyteller, and what made now the right time to bring it into the present day?
Dark Shadows has always been a thing in our house, although a very unspoken one. My mom loved it, and would watch it after school when she was a girl. I caught piecemeal episodes over the years, and then got to see the entire run for the first time when SciFi started airing the series in order.
Fast forward, and it’s 2017. Twin Peaks: The Return arrives. It really is the pinnacle of art as it relates to our culture’s desire to reboot/ revisit. It is exquisite filmmaking, and it entrenched this idea that some properties that have not seen the love, or have had a misfire like the Burton movie, could really be viable again. I’m a researcher by day, and so it’s very easy to find the data that shows a whole new generation of people discovering the show via streaming. They are ready for new content. I know, as I’m in a Dark Shadows Discord with a lot of creative, rabid Gen Z folks. I’m hoping that, if we build a human, heart-filled story, they will come.
Carolyn Stoddard-Hawkes takes center stage in Curse of Dark Shadows—what inspired you to make her the emotional anchor of the story, and how has she evolved since the original series?
Carolyn was rejecting her capitalistic upbringing. She was very rebellious. That totally resonated with me. And she is one of the few female characters to hold her own against Barnabas. There was power in that, but it was the 1960s so Carolyn didn’t ever really get to drive story. Miss Nancy, the actress who gave life to Carolyn and countless other characters, infuses her with such life. I was drawn to seeing what a 70-ish year old woman would be like in the current day, having grown up in the most haunted house in America. How she has evolved is very much a part of the story, so I won’t say more about that yet.
Barnabas Collins is such an iconic figure in gothic horror and television history. What was your approach to writing him in this new era?
I wanted Barnabas to have changed in some way. He was the original emo kid, moaning and groaning, always an old fuddy duddy, and it excited me when he first put on a mod suit in the show. Mister Jonathan Frid, who performed the role on TV, is absolutely brilliant! He gives so many layers and I wanted to further peel back that onion. So Barnabas is a bit of a fashionista now. He has had a whole life in Paris now, and his family dynamic is a fascinating one to me. He does have the same bangs, though. Really, it’s about giving him a situation where he has really had the opportunity to figure out who he is away from his biological family.
Can you talk about working with Jok on the art—how did his style help shape the tone and atmosphere of the book?
Jok and I just spoke about this. Our years of working together gave us a shorthand to communicate the needs of the page. We have built trust in each other over the years, so I was always open to his feedback. He served as the voice of the newbie, as he’s only seen a handful of episodes I shared with him when we started prepping the book. On the other hand, I’m the deep lore holder (with help from Rich Handley and Penny Dreadful). So it was always a balancing act of providing the multiple reading groups what they needed and not more than that.
What’s your creative process like as a team, and how did it evolve for Curse of Dark Shadows?
Well here, in a 2D comics format, we can’t do the same things that they did on television. So the tv show’s camera tricks had to be reworked through Jok’s artistry. So it’s almost like we created a new language between us, or at least a dialect of the language we developed over the last 25 years of working together. Jok is a wiz, and he is so diligent. I want to work with him as often as I can, and Curse of Dark Shadows sealed that.
You’re launching this as part of the 60th anniversary celebration for Dark Shadows. How does this graphic novel honor that legacy while still offering something new for readers?
It is entirely based in the lore of the tv show. That is our only source material. I agonized over who to include, and ultimately we settled on Barnabas, Carolyn, and David Collins, with a group of 3 of Carolyn’s graduate students as our “new reader POV” characters. I think by streamlining it, and imbuing it with my own Southern Gothic roots, we have arrived at something that will be satisfying to both new & long-term readers. Satisfying enough that, fingers crossed, we get to do Fall of Dark Shadows.