I’m a huge fan of Universal’s original 1954 monster movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Skybound Entertainment has revealed a new story they will tell under the title Gill-Man The Creature from the Black Lagoon is alive!.
This is the second Universal Monster horror comic they have produced. The first was last year’s Dracula, and they also have a Frankenstein comic in development by writer and artist Michael Walsh, which is coming this summer.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is alive! follows the events of the original film and also includes characters such as Dr. Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell) who is still searching for Gill-man. This new story, however, will shift attention to journalist Kate Marsden.
Marsden finds himself in the Amazon forest hunting a serial killer named Darwin Collier and, in his adventure, finds a different monster than he expected.
The comic comes from writer Ram V (Detective Comics, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr), who says he envisioned the story as Creature from the Black Lagoon meet True detective, which sounds great! He wasn’t able to write the comic due to his contract with DC Comics, so they hired a writer Dan Watters (Home Sick Pilots, Coffin Bound) to deal with it.
Watter told /Film in an interview: “I’m always a little bit cautious and careful about what I take on. In general, to begin with, but also particularly with co-writing. It can be thorny. But you know, Ram and I’m part of the same writing studio. […] Because I had faith in the team I was working with, I was happy to come on board and just the elevator pitch was so interesting that I really couldn’t say no.
Watter admits that Creature from the Black Lagoon isn’t one of his favorite films, so he approached the material as if it were an external experience, which he enjoyed.
He explained: “I love all kinds of old horror. I came to ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and went from there. ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon,’ I don’t know if I could honestly say that was my favorite and the more standout, but that was also part of the appeal of being presented as, “Hey, what would you do with this, where would you take it?”
He continued: “And I think it can be more fun and more rewarding than something that you feel particularly valuable about. You can come a little bit from the outside and say, “What works about this?” What’s interesting about this and what can I say about it?'”
When asked how he makes scary comics, Watter shared, “Going into a medium that is hampered like almost no other in terms of creating horror is a really fascinating thing because it’s hampered by limitations, which are not a bad thing. “
He added: “They just force you to come up with creative answers. Page turners and things like, yeah, that’s good, but it’s never going to be as effective as a jump scare, which relies on sound [and] movement. Which comics just don’t have all that going for them. So you have to create it through atmosphere and you have to unnerve your reader before you can scare them with something visual.”
I can’t wait to read this. This could end up being a great comic! I like the concept of the story. Art comes from the pencils of Matthew Roberts and colors of Dave Stewart. You can see a preview below.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is alive #1 releases Wednesday, April 24th at physical and digital retailers.
by Joey Paur
Source: Geek Tyrant
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
