Comic legends Walt and Louise Simonson are set to become real-life characters in a new horror novel trilogy. They appear as themselves in Draw You In, a series of three novels set in the comics industry, written by award-winning horror author Jasper Bark and published by Crystal Lake Entertainment on the 5thJune 2024.
In a career that includes a staggering number of accomplishments and accolades, Walt and Louise Simonsonhave broken a lot of new ground in comics. Walt had a career defining run on Thor, creating the character Beta Ray Bill and pushing comics storytelling in the 80s to the hilt. Long before crossovers became an annual, company-wide event, Walt drew some of the first cross overs – including the only meeting of the X-Men and the Teen Titans and the Mutant Massacre storyline, Marvel’s largest crossover of the time.
Louise helped initiate the Mutant Massacre storyline, with her work on X-Factor and Power Pack. She too broke new ground with the first all-female creative partnership with June Brigmanon Power Pack. She was also one of the principle architects, in 1992/93, of the Death of Superman storyline which made headlines around the world as it was the first time a major comics company had killed off its flagship character.
Now they continue to push the envelope as they step into the fictional world of the Draw You In trilogy. Author Jasper Bark explains: “I’d originally written two characters based on Walt and Louise but, as one of the themes of the trilogy is the way fiction and reality bleed into one other, especially in comics, I thought why not invite them to actually enter the world of the novels as themselves. Grant Morrison has said that in the future we’ll all be able to put on ‘fiction suits’ and step into our favourite stories, so I thought it would be fun to try something like that and we worked out a way to do it.”
Walt and Louise not only appear in the story, they also wrote all their own dialogue and action as if they actually lived and worked in the fictional world of the author’s books. They had no idea how the story would turn out, just the scenes they were in. As Walter said: “We totally love being a real fictional character in a book although we’ll revisit this opinion if I meet a sticky end! Jasper Bark – I’m talking to you!!”
Jasper said: “I don’t think this has ever been done before in a novel. It was an experiment we had great fun with. Even though I was the author, when Walt or Louise stepped into a scene they could take it anywhere they wanted, and I just had to go along with it. The results were better than I could have ever imagined.”
Draw You In, Vol 1 – Collector’s Item, featuring Walt, is released on June 7th. Draw You In, Vol 2 – Secret Origins, featuring Louise, is released on June 21st and Draw You In, Vol 3 – Behind The Mask is released on July 5th, 2024.
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