Coming from Image Comics on March 23 is THE RATTLER from writer Jason McNamara and artist Greg Hinkle. The original graphic novel is inspired by true events from McNamara's past and after a successful Kickstarter campaign, it was picked up by Image. We spoke with McNamara about the upcoming book, which has its FOC on February 22.
COMIC VINE: What's Rattler about?
JASON MCNAMARA: Stephen Thorn is a passionate victims rights advocate haunted by the abduction of his fiancée. When he receives a message from the missing woman it sends him on a grisly journey of discovery. It’s an atmospheric, bloody tale of love and obsession.
CV: The opening of this book is exactly like an experience you had in 2001. Can you tell us about that?
MCNAMARA: In the book I get into a little more detail, but the basics are this; I took a Christmas Eve road trip with my childhood friend Stephenie. We had a broken gas gauge and broke down in a very rural area of northern California where there were no houses or even lights. Because it was pitch black, we rolled the car off the street and waited for another car to pass. After an hour, a truck finally came along and we flagged it down. The driver, a mid-forties gentleman, offered to tow our car, and us, to a gas station a few miles away.
But we had to get our car out of the ditch first. As luck had it, he some very thick rope in his truck. He tied his back bumper to our Ranchero’s front and asked that Stephenie steers our car out of the ditch while I got behind it and helped push while he towed it forward. What could go wrong?
Well, we got our car out of the ditch but he continued driving away without me, taking Stephenie, captive in our car, with him. I tried to run after them but I’m no Jessie Owens. I probably sloshed my beer belly for 8 feet before I started wheezing. Stephenie honked and swerved but he didn’t stop. She pulled the emergency brake, which broke the rope holding them together. She hopped out of the car and ran towards me; we got off the road and hid on the side of the road in the trees. The driver stopped, backed up and got out of his truck. He looked around for a minute and then drove off.
Later, when we were safe and back home, I wondered what would have happened if he had had a chain in his truck instead of a rope. That’s where The Rattler starts, the first 6 pages are almost exactly the same as they happened in real life.
CV: This book has gone through quite a journey, from Kickstarter to Image. How did Image get involved with this book?
MCNAMARA: From script to art to pre-press set up, Greg Hinkle and I produced The Rattler entirely on our own. We were very passionate about the story and wanted to create it on our own terms. That independent DIY mindset made Kickstarter an appealing first step for The Rattler. We ran a cut and dry campaign; shipped our books early and our backers rewarded us with positive word of mouth and stellar reviews. Since neither Greg nor I really do conventions we sold our extra copies to the retailers who supported the campaign and when they sold out we realized there might actually a demand for a mainstream edition.
As for how we ended up at Image Comics, I think it’s always better to show a publisher what you’ve done as opposed to what you’d like to do. Publishers do not have a lot of resources for hand holding or coddling. With the KS edition, we proved we understood production, marketing and could follow through. It didn’t hurt they Greg was already blowing minds on Airboy either.
For the Image edition, Greg knocked out a beautiful new cover and illustrated an extra deleted page from the script. We also brought on veteran editor Joel Enos (Viz Comics) to help give the entire project a spit shine. If the Rattler does well enough we have another tale of terror we’d like to tackle. Cross your fingers.
CV: How did Greg Hinkle get involved?
MCNAMARA: I met Greg Hinkle at the Isotope Comic Lounge in San Francisco a few years back when he was still in school. We became pals and collaborated on a short horror piece for his horror anthology Parasomnia. We were both pretty happy with how the piece came out and started kicking around ideas for a larger self-contained graphic novel. Greg and I are both huge horror fans and we wanted to create an atmospheric story in the vein of classic John Carpenter. So I went off and wrote The Rattler specifically for Greg. There was a period where I didn’t think he was going to be able to draw it and I half-heartedly looked around for other artists but I already seen the book in my head and knew Greg was the only person who could bring it to life. Luckily, he was fired from his day job driving a bus around LAX and we were able to finish the book.
CV: One of the interesting things about this book is that aside from a grayscale, we only see the color red, as in blood. What led towards that decision? Was it something Greg came up with or something you both moved towards?
MCNAMARA: We experimented with a few different options, full color, muted colors, strictly black and white, etc. We knew it was critical to establish the right tone on page one. Grayscale removes the “comfort” of color but still gives your eye a lot of information to take in. But getting the blood to look right in grayscale was a real problem. It just looked goofy. Greg suggested using red exclusively for the blood and proposed using it in tandem with Stephen’s mental state. Honestly, I thought it sounded like art school nonsense until he showed me how it could work. I give Greg 100% of the credit for that decision, it works wonderfully.
CV: This book is violent, dark, and haunting. Going back to that moment on the road, when your car was out of gas, do you think this is how it would have all played out in a worst case scenario?
MCNAMARA: It’s funny, at the time we sort of laughed it off as a crazy night and didn’t talk about it much. We encountered something very evil out on that road and I think we wanted it to stay away. wanted to stay away from it. When I did think about that night I’d wonder, “who does that?” That guy is still out there somewhere, walking around people who probably think he’s normal. It’s chilling.
The worst-case scenario I played with was not only her being gone but what that would have done to me, her family and friends. Tragedy doesn’t occur in a vacuum. As I let my mind wonder I realized it was a selfish thing to do, focusing on how near tragedy might shape me and that helped form Stephen Thorn. He turned the tragedy of Catherine’s disappearance into a cottage industry, so much that when she contacts him you have to wonder how much of him actually wants her back and how much of it is him playing a character in a story he created for himself.
Thanks to Jason for talking to use and make sure to tell your local comic shop to order THE RATTLER. Final order cut-offs are on February 22.