Genre-bending production company SpectreVision, known for films like Mandy and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is partnering with acclaimed publisher Oni Press for a new comic book series that delves into true accounts of the paranormal.
The five-part series, High Strangeness, will explore the liminal spaces where UFO sightings, hauntings, and cryptid encounters intersect.
The project is spearheaded by Daniel Noah, a writer, producer, and co-founder of SpectreVision alongside Elijah Wood and Lawrence Inglee. Once a self-professed sceptic, his perspective shifted following an unexplainable encounter at Colorado’s Stanley Hotel – the very hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining. This experience set him on a decade-long path of documenting hundreds of otherworldly encounters, forming the basis for this new comic book venture.
Daniel Noah explained the series’ mission in a press statement.
There are people from all walks of life bound quietly together by anomalous experience: ghost encounters, cryptid sightings, UFOs, extrasensory perception, and all manner of high strangeness. The questions raised by these incidents are profound, probing the mystery of existence and suggesting the possibility of a single unifying theory that ties it all together. The stories in this series seek to go further than genre has gone before, not by offering definitive answers, but by asking the right questions. Not just who we are, but what are we? And what is the true nature of this theatre in which we live?
To bring these uncanny tales to life, Oni and SpectreVision have assembled a formidable roster of comic book talent. The five-part series will feature stories from:
- Writer Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine) with artist Dave Chisholm (Plague House)
- Writer Zac Thompson (Cemetery Kids Run Rabid) with artist Noah Bailey (Station Grand)
- Writer Christopher Cantwell (Out of Alcatraz) with artist Valeria Burzo (EC’s Epitaphs from the Abyss)
- Writer Cecil Castellucci (Shade the Changing Girl) with artist Chloe Stawski (Sapphic Pulp)
- Writer and artist Christian Ward (Batman: City of Madness)
The series kicks off this October with High Strangeness: Book One – 1967. Co-written by Daniel Noah and Chris Condon with art by Dave Chisholm, the first chapter follows magazine writer Harry Kean. Dispatched to rural Indiana to debunk a UFO sighting connected to a missing teenager, Kean instead finds himself ensnared in a web of mysterious Men in Black and a puzzle far larger than he could have anticipated.
Chris Condon noted the creative freedom of the project.
When Oni Press President and Publisher Hunter Gorinson first approached me about writing for the company, he said something that hit me like a ton of bricks; not because it was shocking, but because it rang true. ‘Keep comics weird.’ That was his phrase. Here is a series exploring the dark corners of our world where the very laws of physics bend in eerie fashion, where creatures wild and unnatural lurk, where what you see isn’t necessarily what you get.
Each issue of High Strangeness will be presented in Oni’s prestige format, featuring 40 ad-free pages on high-quality paper with cardstock covers. The issues will also include a feature-length essay by podcaster and researcher Jim Perry (Euphomet), examining the historical evidence and real-world phenomena that underpin each story. Such deep dives into lore and background are a popular feature, as seen in many successful indie comics and even some tabletop roleplaying games covered on Geek Native.
Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson elaborated on the series’ unique approach.
Bizarre and disturbing stories of the phenomena collectively known as ‘high strangeness’ have been puzzling humanity for at least a century… With HIGH STRANGENESS, we’ve set out to pursue a new kind of paranormal epic: one that honors the harrowing, but revelatory experiences of those who have come face-to-face with the extraordinary, while exploring the fascinating superstructure that unites these diverse and terrifying apparitions that can appear to be alien, supernatural, and illusory all in equal measure.
For those heading to San Diego Comic-Con this month, there will be an opportunity to learn more. A live taping of the SpectreVision Radio Live podcast is scheduled for Saturday, 26th July, at the Neil Morgan Auditorium in the San Diego Central Library. SpectreVision co-founders Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah will be joined by host Jim Perry, writers Christopher Cantwell and Chris Condon, Oni’s Hunter Gorinson, and Senior Editor Bess Pallares.
High Strangeness: Book One – 1967 is slated to arrive in comic shops on October 8th, with covers by Jock (Wytches), Dave Chisholm, Becca Carey (Radiant Black), and Malachi Ward (Black Hammer).
High Strangeness preview
