A press release with a meta flourish from Vault Comics today and who can pass that up? We have to wait until November but a follow-up series (of sorts) to the acclaimed Fearscape will be coming from them towards the end of the year. Details and preview art below.
Vault Comics is thrilled to announce the return of FEARSCAPE‘s untrustworthy plagiarist Henry Henry in A DARK INTERLUDE, the not-quite-a-sequel to the hit Vault series, FEARSCAPE.
A DARK INTERLUDE is written by Ryan O’Sullivan, drawn by Andrea Mutti, colored by Vladimir Popov, lettered by Andworld Design, and designed by Tim Daniel.
To commemorate A DARK INTERLUDE‘s announcement, Henry Henry himself had this to say:
“Dear reader, kindly ignore my publisher and whichever clickbait, data-selling, privacy-ignoring “entertainment news” website they have elected to run this advertisement on; A Dark Interlude is not a sequel to Fearscape. I would never dream of contributing to society’s paunched glut of never-ending stories. Originality died the day the child-reader cried “more”, and the parent-author obeyed.
“While it may be true that A Dark Interlude begins where Fearscape ends, that all of the characters from Fearscape reappear, that the Fearscape itself also reappears (still as a metaphysical realm beyond our own, where that which we fear most takes physical form); to take these coincidental continuances as indicative of the work-as-sequel is to misunderstand the primary function of all literature. I speak, as well you know, of the anxiety of influence.
“Our inspiration comes not from the gods, but from our fellow man. How often do we imagine a story of our own creation, seemingly from the ether, only to discover it already exists in a book penned by another? (Perhaps a book we own! Perhaps, even, one we’ve previously read!) Humanity is a coral reef, largely sharing the same thoughts. So to the franchise-fetishists I ask – is all literature a sequel to Dante? To Tolstoy? To Shakespeare?
“Of course not. The sheer concept is lunacy. And yet, the thought is appealing. The entirety of human literature as one long, single, narrative. I wonder, how would such a story end? (And who would dare try to write it?)”
A DARK INTERLUDE #1 hits store shelves in November 2020, and will debut with a Pulp & Paint B cover by Nathan Gooden & Tim Daniel. The official synopsis can be read below:
After the stunning success of Fearscape, comes A Dark Interlude, the story of—No! The only offence to literature greater than the loathsome synopsis is the sequel. I will not stand idle while some poor excuse for an editor mangles and confuses my story, which is intact, perfect, and concluded, with this derivative drivel. Mark my words, this nonsense has nothing to do with my tale. I am not in it. I do not condone it. And you, dear reader, should not buy it. -Henry Henry
