When I would get penciled pages from Jerem, it was always interesting to see what he had decided to do with the material (same goes for the colored ones). However, when I saw this page for the first time, I was struck by one very important difference between movies and comic books: being able to put a camera down in your location or having to draw every single detail. It seems obvious now, but it hadn’t occurred to me when we started the project.

We had a bunch of Drive-In Horrorshow stories we could have sent to Jerem, but we felt that this one would work well in a comic book format, because it doesn’t depend solely on filmmaking tricks (creepy music, long takes, etc) to make it work. But one thing that I had no clue about was that, by giving Jerem and Shi a story set in an antique store, we had just created tons of extra work for them. Like I said, if we were to film this, we would probably find a real antique store somewhere, maybe dress the set a little to make it look like we wanted it to, and roll camera. Or, if we really wanted to, we could recreate the store on a set, which is a lot of work, but once you’re done you’re ready to film you can get any shot that you want - just move the camera and there you go.

Not so with the comic. Jerem and Shi can’t just stick the comic in an antique store and expect everything to leap onto the page. Jerem had to do tons of research of different knick-knacks and random stuff: on this page, for example, there are books, the skeleton, the bottle on the shelf, the shelves, tools on the desk, etc. If you go back to previous pages, there are details everywhere (I like the suit of armor on page 8) and a lot of them are unique to only one panel. There are some really detailed pages coming up, too (I think you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see them). So, yeah, when I first saw this page I realized just what we’d asked them to do. That said, I’m glad that they stuck with it, because all of those details give the shop a great sense of place and character, which helps the story tremendously.

Speaking of location details, one thing I was completely surprised by was Jerem’s use of the items in the shop as narrative devices. It’s an idea that had never occurred to me, and it’s a creative way to set a tone and give the story some places to pause in between the dialogue and action. They almost seem to comment on what’s happening, like a Greek chorus. If I’d filmed this before giving it to Jerem, I doubt I’d have done this at all. That’s one of the cool things about this project: seeing what someone else can do with your story, and the unique things that they can bring to it. Lots of pleasant surprises.