Cullen Bunn got into comic books like most of us did.
"When I was a kid," says the Broken Frontier Award-winning author, "I was, like most children, really into superhero comics."
But even as Bunn read the adventures of do-gooders in brightly colored spandex, his younger self was aware of comics’ darker side.
"I had a big collection of horror comics, too," Bunn tells Newsarama, "thanks to yard sales. Whenever my dad went to the creek to go fishing, I would gather up big armloads of horror comics and bring them with me. [...] Among those comics were loads of DC's House of Mystery."
Bunn would eventually create "armloads" of comics himself, and though the writer has tackled plenty of superhero tales, the argument could be made that Bunn is predominantly a horror comics writer, with macabre titles like Harrow County and The Empty Man (the basis for the 2020 horror film of the same name) being some of his best-received work.
Now, Bunn has reteamed with Harrow County publisher Dark Horse to pay homage to the horror comics of his youth, with the creepy anthology Shock Shop.
Like House of Mystery, Shock Shop will feature a variety of unrelated tales to thrill and horrify, all narrated by an in-comic storyteller or "horror host." In the case of House of Mystery, that horror host was Cain, an impishly evil headmaster-type with pointed ears and a taste for murder.
In the pages of Shock Shop, we'll have comic shop owner Desdaemona Nimue Moreau (designed by Haunted artist Danny Luckert) as our grizzly guide. And though Desdaemona and Cain are polar opposites in appearance, the two share a dark sense of humor, an appetite for evil, and, intriguingly, a bit more backstory than the average horror host.
Watchers of Sandman know something about Cain's story, and readers of the comic know even more. Desdaemona's backstory is a little more complicated.
"Desdaemona is a bit of a mystery – a mystery that will be explored in small bits and pieces as more issues of Shock Shop are released," Bunn explains. "We know she owns the Shock Shop. Rumor has it that before she opened the shop, she worked in a graveyard and a fast food joint at the same time. She often brought one job into the other, so to speak. But those jobs ended in tragedy and catastrophe.
"Now, she sells comics in a shop that is more haunted than Hill House. Her clientele is a little strange, but they all maintain pull-and-hold services and they all pre-order upcoming Cullen Bunn books, so they're not so bad."
That sense of humor is integral to Bunn's creation of Desdaemona. In fact, it's central to the creation of Shock Shop.
Bunn cites the horror host format as something that "gives me the chance to be a little weird, silly, and quirky." Bunn points out that with stories that are "pretty serious and dark," it's important to have the chance to break up the grim nature of the book, or "play in a lot of different arenas," as he puts it.
The first two entries into the anthology title are indeed pretty dark. 'Something in the Woods, in the Dark,' centers on a group of friends trying desperately to help a couple on the brink of separation. To do so, they take a group camping trip and encounter more things in the woods than marital strife.
In the second story, 'Familiars,' a recently divorced father discovers his new home is haunted, much to the delight of his visiting children. But what appears to be friendly spirits might have something other than friendliness in mind.
'Something in the Woods, in the Dark' is drawn and colored by Danny Luckert and lettered by Nate Piekos; 'Familiars' is drawn by Leila Leiz, colored by Bill Crabtree, and lettered by Piekos.
Shock Shop #1 is the first in a three-part miniseries. But issue #1, and even the limited series as a whole, might only be the beginning for Bunn.
"I could tell Shock Shop stories until the end of my days," he says, "and then the erector set robot I've built to be implanted into my corpse will continue to tell even more Shock Shop stories until long after I'm gone."
Horror hosting humor aside, Bunn does believe Shock Shop will endure "the test of time," even beyond his writing of the series, that the title can stand "proudly alongside the classics." As a parting note, Bunn reminds fans who want more horror anthologies that reader response is critical and pre-orders matter.
Shock Shop #1 will be available September 7.
In the meantime, check out the best horror comics of all time.
