Joe Hill launches horror-themed comics line Hill House Comics

Joe Hill is teaming up with DC Comics to bring more horror stories into our lives. Please welcome Hill House Comics, your new source for horror comics.

There are not enough horror comics out there and that is a fact. It’s just not that easy for a publisher to go ahead with darker, more adult themes that don’t involve characters in colorful suits and capes (which are good, but we need some fictional horror in printed form too), but thanks to Joe Hill, we will get a new line of horror comics very soon.

Titled Hill House Comics, this line is a product of the combined efforts of Hill and DC Comics, and will have material aimed at a mature audience – very much like Vertigo Comics, which is sadly coming to an end in January 2020. Hill House Comics will be released under DC Black Label, the publisher’s imprint for mature audiences.

Even with their superhero stories, DC has always leaned more towards darker themes, so it’s a good place for this project – and with the horror genre in general going through a “new golden age” (as Hill himself puts it), this “pop-up line” arrives at the best time. But what can we expect from Hill House Comics? Well, exactly what you would expect from a comic line by Joe Hill. He explains:

"“At Hill House Comics we aim to shock the senses and soak the page in red, with new, hooky horror from seasoned old hands and young masters of the field, all set free to share their most disturbing nightmares… for your pleasure! The books are backed by DC’s second-to-none comic book craftsmanship, and we’re working with the very best editors on parole from Arkham Asylum to craft unputdownable tales of menace and madness. I can’t wait to share some fresh scares with comic book readers everywhere. It’s going to be fun”."

I see what you did there, Mr. Hill. And I love it.

The first series, Basketful of Heads, will debut on October 30, followed by four other series in subsequent months. Each book will come with a story titled “Sea Dogs”, written by Hill, and set during the American Revolution, with werewolves terrorizing a crew of sailors at sea. One more reason to follow the stories that this line will bring.

DC Comics also revealed the covers of the five upcoming books including some plot details.

Basketful of Heads (written by Joe Hill, art by Leomacs, covers by Reiko Murakami)
A woman with a Viking axe that can cut a man’s head in a single swipe and leaves the severed head still conscious and capable of speaking, finds herself fighting through the lies and manipulations of each disembodied head, while also racing to save the man she loves before time runs out.

DC’s Hill House Comics “The Low Low Woods”

The Low, Low Woods (written by Carmen Maria Machado, art by Dani, cover by J.A.W. Cooper)

A “gruesome coming-of-age body-horror mystery series” that follows two teenage women who try to uncover the truth about the mysterious, memory-devouring plague that hit their town.

DC’s Hill House Comics “The Dollhouse Family”

The Dollhouse Family (written by Mike Carey, art by Peter Gross, covers by Jessica Dalva).

Alice gets a 19th-century dollhouse, with antique dolls and all. Turns out that she can enter the house and visit a new group of friends there, but she starts losing track of where reality ends and fantasy begins. There will be violence, by the way.

DC’s Hill House Comics “Daphne Byrne”

Daphne Byrne (written by Laura Marks, art by Kelley Jones, covers by Piotr Jabłoński)

Set in 19th century New York, 14 year-old Daphne is caught trying to disentangle her grieving mother from a group of occultists that promise to contact Daphne’s dead father, while also learning she is serving as host to an evil entity.

DC’s Hill House Comics “Plunge”

Plunge (written by Joe Hill, covers by Jeremy Wilson)