Exclusive Peeks at Friendo & Fearscape From Vault Comics
The Upstart Sci-Fi/Fantasy Publisher Continues its Genre Hot Streak
Main Art by Martin Simmonds/ Andrea Mutti & Vladimir Popov
Two months ago, Paste brought you the exclusive news that Vault Comics and British comics collective White Noise, made up of Dan Watters, Ryan O’Sullivan, Alex Paknadel and Ram V., had entered a partnership for four brand-new original series: Deep Roots from Watters and Val Rodrigues; Fearscape from O’Sullivan and Andrea Mutti; Friendo from Paknadel and Martin Simmonds; and These Savage Shores from Ram V. and Sumit Kumar. Today, Paste has an exclusive extended first look at half of that lineup, with the debut of interior pages from Friendo and Fearscape, along with statements from the books’ writers.
Fearscape’s Ryan O’Sullivan:
“It’s Fearscape meets Fearscape”
I was asked to explain Fearscape for this Paste article. To open up about the story, the characters, my influences and the overall point of the comic series. I tried to do this, swear to god. I sat down with a pot of coffee and tried to break down the most layered thing I’ve ever written into its composite soundbyte-friendly parts. But I just couldn’t do it. Anything I wrote just seemed to give the game away. If I were to talk about the plot, and how it links with my influences, then I’d give away a twist in the fourth act. If I talked about the nature of the protagonist, you’d immediately know where he was going to end up. That’s the thing with stories, sometimes talking about them can undermine the whole point of telling the story in the first place. Stories are like demons; once you know their true name they have no power over you.
And I want Fearscape to have power over you.
In a way it already does. You’re reading an article about it and that’s building a prejudice towards it in your mind. You have some sort of opinion of me as a writer based on my words here, and you’re going to expect a certain type of story based on people like me you’ve encountered in the past. This is dangerous though, because stories are supposed to exist in isolation. How many times have you read an introduction at the start of a novel only to have a big twist (one you’ve managed to avoid your entire life, despite how popular the novel is) utterly ruined for you? How many times have you heard a film universally lauded, only to discover it painfully average? This sort of thing happens to me all the time. This is the danger of stretching stories beyond their pages.
With that said, everyone reads book blurbs. Here’s the blurb for Fearscape:
From Ryan O’Sullivan, Andrea Mutti, Vladimir Popov and Deron Bennet comes FEARSCAPE. The Fearscape is a world beyond our own, populated by the manifestations of our worst fears. Once per generation, The Muse travels to Earth, discovers our greatest Storyteller, and takes them with her to the Fearscape to battle these fear-creatures on our behalf. All has been well for eons, until The Muse encounters Henry Henry—a plagiarist with delusions of literary grandeur. Mistaking him for our greatest Storyteller, she ushers him into the Fearscape. A fake man in a fake land…this is the story of the wrong person answering the call to adventure, and the doom that followed.
That explains the high concept well enough, but it doesn’t explain everything. Because nothing can. Because sometimes a story can only be explained by the act of experiencing it firsthand.
So go ahead, experience it below via the preview pages. And when you’re done with them, don’t forget to go to your local comic store on September 26th.
Because that’s when I’ll really explain what Fearscape is to you.
