When you've been reporting comic book news for as long as Newsarama has, publisher announcements become very familiar.
Then one day you see something you've never seen before. December 15 was one of those days...
"Timed to National Cat Lover's Month..." begins Dark Horse Comics' announcement of a new horror limited series titled Hairball.
Hairball is a supernatural thriller by the creative power trio of writer Matt Kindt, artist Tyler Jenkins, and colorist by Hilary Jenkins (Fear Case, Apache Delivery Service). The four-issue series launches in April and is described as "Junji Ito meets Hayao Miyazaki meets Stephen King."
The series is a co-production of Flux House, Kindt's new boutique imprint that Dark Horse says will feature the writing (and sometimes) art of Kindt, with crime, science fiction, and humor stories, "all told and presented in startling and untraditional ways."
In Hairball a young girl named Anna begins to suspect that all her dysfunctional family's mounting problems - including her parents' fighting and the strange whispering in her ear at night - may or may not be caused by an unlikely culprit: the family's black cat Bestie.
"As she tries her best to rid herself of this creature, she finds that it's not so easy to kill," reads DHC's description. "But just maybe, the cat is the only thing standing between her and an even greater evil that threatens to destroy her life."
"I've written stories of international intrigue and locked room murder mysteries, but in twenty years of making comics, I've rarely been compelled to create a horror story," says Kindt. "And for good reason. I was actually sick to my stomach when I finished writing the end of issue #1. I grossed myself out. I knew that I'd need someone fearless to draw it. (There was no way I was going to.) I knew that Tyler was the perfect artist and co-creator for the story. And when Tyler and Hilary started sending his pages in, it was just as horrible as I'd imagined —in the very best way."
"The best horror stories peel back and slowly reveal the horrors of everyday life," adds Jenkins. "At its heart, Hairball is a story about a family, one that treats each other horribly. Is there a reason for their terrible behavior? Could the cause of all their problems really be Bestie?"
Hairball #1 goes on sale in April with a cover by Kindt and a variant cover by Martin Simmonds. National Cat Lover's Month is being celebrated right now. Though Hairball doesn't sound like it's in love with cats... we're just saying.
Hairball will try to claw its way into Newsarama's list of the best horror comics of all time.
