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Very few things in the world are as scary as the world of sales. Could a horror comic about a door-to-door sales team be one of the scariest comics of all time? “Door to Door, Night After Night,” a new series from Cullen Bunn and Sally Cantirino, may just answer that question.
The comic will follow “The Heritage Mills sales team travels from town to town knocking on doors. They are the best at what they do…which also means they are the worst. They are broken, every one of them, haunted by closets so full of skeletons they burst. When they discover a terrible secret behind a fateful door, it opens their eyes to a world full of real monsters hidden in every small town.
We knocked on the doors of creators Cullen Bunn and Sally Cantirino to learn more about their new series. The duo discuss the balance of horror and comedy, salesmanship and plans for the series. You can find their answers below and Door to Door Night After Night in stores and online now!
“Door to door, night after night” is great for a comic. What is this series and what does the title tell us?
Cullen Bunn: The title really says it all! This book follows the exploits of a misfit group of door-to-door salesmen who travel the country to make a living. This is how they spend their days. In every town they visit, however, they encounter some kind of supernatural horror, and it falls to them to put those horrors to rest night after night.
You’ve both worked in the horror comic genre before, Cullen, I think you’ve written a horror book or two, right? For both of you as creators, what have you found works best for the medium when it comes to horror, and how did you bring that to this series?
Sally Cantrino: In horror movies or TV shows, you have music and sound effects to set the mood. In comics, color plays a huge role in setting mood, emotion, time, memory, space – Dee does a fantastic job of this in Door to Door. The director controls the pace at which the audience digests the story. With comics, you have to figure out how to build in that pacing, how to balance clear storytelling with suspense, and how to pull off a scare or a big reveal when readers can see a whole page or two pages at once—every page turn counts!
CB: I couldn’t agree more! Sally hits the nail on the head. Art, pacing, overall tone and mood all play a vital role. It’s also important to make the characters seem like living, breathing people who—whether you agree or not with the things they do and say—you care about what happens to them. This is a huge part of making a book scary. The reader should fear what will happen to the cast. And, believe me, no one is safe in this book.
As an extension of this, the series also seems to weave in quite a bit of humor, which I think can be just as difficult to pull off as comic book horror. How much humor is there in this story and how do you find that right balance?
CB: The important thing about this series is that the elements of horror – the monsters – are never played for fun. They are strangely disturbing at best, terrifying and inhuman at worst. Any humor comes from the reaction of our human characters to the horror they encounter. Balance is important because it helps keep readers on their toes. Just when something adorable or funny happens – ahem! – then nightmares become real.
SC: I think nervous laughter and finding something funny in the midst of a stressful or scary situation is a very normal human thing, I think horror can be over the top and silly and self-aware at times, and sometimes that’s when it’s at its best. Landing a punchline or joke is the flip side of the same coin as landing a horror or revelation.
There is a great cast of characters that make up this book. How did you approach bringing this group of people to life and do you have a favorite person to write/draw?
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SC: Cullen gave me some excellent notes to start from when it comes to character design. I pretty quickly figured out what I wanted Cal, Alex, and Lainey to look like. Cal is sort of a haggard Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone “Time Enough At Last”, Cal is based on a combination of a middle school science teacher I remember who had a huge beard and Cameron Britton in Mindhunter, Lacey has a big 80s asymmetrical hair and energy this is fun to draw. When designing Will, I was aiming for a ‘softer, carefree Don Draper’ – after I submitted my first sketches, Cullen shared a photo of his father with us and the resemblance was striking, all I had to do was add sideburns. Fred was the hardest to design – I had a file where I sketched and put reference photos for ideas and some of those photos were of my dad in a polo shirt and a big mustache in the 80s. At one point I shared the file and Cullen was like “that guy!” so sorry dad, you ended up in a comic.
I think Cal is my favorite to draw because he’s such a weird, angular little guy, every expression I draw on him is great (and he makes great faces in issue 4). Laney is also fun to draw, simply because I have to plan a new outfit for each of her issues. I can imagine, well, what the economy is in this new city.
CB: The shocking thing is that these characters are based on people I knew growing up. Sally somehow reached into the ether and created a cast that really, really looked like the people I remember! I mean they don’t look exactly like these people but they are dead in spirit.
I don’t want to make people feel jealous, but I got to read a preview of the first 3 issues and there are quite a few surprises for each issue. What can you tease when it comes to what readers can see in the series?
CB: We have a strange array of monsters and horrors to visit. I don’t think there are any “standard” horror creatures in miss. The second and third issues are weird, the fourth goes to some dark places, and the fifth is just a delightful creature feature! And that’s just the beginning! As we go along with the monsters, we’ll run into the characters in some big, sometimes tragic ways.
SC: Mycelium. Hifi. Gills. Disputes. Those strange dried lotus pods that appeared in so many dried bouquets and floral arrangements in the 90s. Our first glimpse into the crew’s past.
A lot of indie titles lately seem to have switched to the mini-series limited run model. Again, you’re both familiar with this, but Cullen has also done longer book series like Sixth Gun. Why do you think this is something that is becoming more common and what are your plans for Door to Door.
CB: I have big plans for Door to Door. There is a large, changing world to explore. A longer series is important to really explore our characters, their pasts, their attitudes, their own personal monsters, and I want the opportunity to really bring all these wild, sometimes disparate ideas together in some great, scary ways.
Creating comics requires some of the energy of a door-to-door salesman to pitch and promote books. You should be doing podcasts and interviews with nerds like me. How do you feel about your door-to-door ability? Have you ever knocked on doors you wish you hadn’t?
SC: My neck to neck ability is questionable at best, hopefully I’m doing better now. It’s weird that I got really into comics, art, and drawing as a teenager because my social anxiety got so bad that I couldn’t do theater or choir as extracurriculars. I said to myself, “I’m going to do art, then I don’t have to talk to anyone, I just put my work out there and that’s it!” 20 years later I have to do podcasts and live shows and think about things like “commitment ‘ and ‘being connected’ on social media – if I had stuck with choir and theater I’d probably have a normal office job now.
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CB: I used to be pretty good at door-to-door sales. I would go to sales, make a lot of money, then spend it at the comic shops we passed on the way home! Of course, these skills have disappeared over the years, but now they are definitely needed. I feel like I use them the most during live pitch sessions for new comic book series… or at conventions when I’m selling books by hand.
Sally is an artist who came out of the gate rocking and continues to get better with each series. Sally, for this new series, what do you think you’re bringing to the table this time?
SC: Every comic I work on requires me to find or pull out a different element of my style. I Walk With Monsters was a serious horror story, it’s beautiful and I’m very proud of it. Human Remains had a lot of observations on humanity and some humor, but the focus was on emotions and relationships. It was a fun challenge to bring out more caricature, exaggeration and physical humor in my style in Door to Door.
When readers turn the last page of the first issue, what do you hope they take away from their time with it?
SC: I hope you are intrigued by these characters and want to learn more about them and stay with us for the ride. Or you are impressed enough with the first big monster and want to see more monsters, goblins, cryptids, ghosts, etc. and stay long for the journey.
CB: I want readers to be intrigued enough by this strange group of characters to stick with us. I think if they stay with us they’ll eventually fall in love with those silly wells, warts and all!
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