Hairball: Kindt, Jenkins, & Jenkins Launch Purrfect New Horror Comic

Cats. They’re inarguably evil, and yet so damn cute we just can’t give them up. Coming next year from Dark Horse Comics and the Flux House imprint, writer Matt Kindt, artist Tyler Jenkins, and colorist Hilary Jenkins bring us Hairball, a supernatural thriller in which “a dysfunctional family’s mounting problems may or may not be caused by an unlikely culprit: the family’s cat”. Is the cat the villain, or is it the hero? It likely depends on your perspective.

I’m Jude Terror, filling in for your usual comics news rumourmonger, Rich Johnston, who was forced to take the day off to tend to an extremely itchy rash on a part of his body we’d rather not mention. A press release describes Hairball, a four-issue mini-series that kicks off in April:

In HAIRBALL, a young girl named Anna begins to suspect that her black cat is behind all her troubles: her parents’ fighting and the strange whispering in her ear at night.. As she tries her best to rid herself of this creature, she finds that it’s not so easy to kill. But just maybe, the cat is the only thing standing between her and an even greater evil that threatens to destroy her life.

“I’ve written stories of international intrigue and locked room murder mysteries, but in twenty years of making comics, I’ve rarely been compelled to create a horror story,” said Kindt in the press release. “And for good reason. I was actually sick to my stomach when I finished writing the end of issue 1. I grossed myself out. I knew that I’d need someone fearless to draw it. (There was no way I was going to.) I knew that Tyler was the perfect artist and co-creator for the story. And when Tyler and Hilary started sending his pages in, it was just as horrible as I’d imagined —in the very best way.”

“The best horror stories peel back and slowly reveal the horrors of everyday life,” said Jenkins. “At its heart, HAIRBALL is a story about a family, one that treats each other horribly. Is there a reason for their terrible behavior? Could the cause of all their problems really be Bestie?”

“HAIRBALL can be described as Junji Ito Meets Hayao Miyazaki meets Stephen King,” said Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson. “The story is strange and supernatural, but the world is so familiar and the family’s trauma is so real that you will not forget Bestie and her family.”

“Meow,” said my cat, sitting on my desk while I write this. Can she read the words on the screen? I’ll never know. Cats are a mystery. Look for Hairball #1 in stores next April with a cover by Kindt and a variant cover by THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH’s Martin Simmonds.

Cats. They’re inarguably evil, and yet so damn cute we just can’t give them up. Coming next year from Dark Horse Comics and the Flux House imprint, writer Matt Kindt, artist Tyler Jenkins, and colorist Hilary Jenkins bring us Hairball, a supernatural thriller in which “a dysfunctional family’s mounting problems may or may not be caused by an unlikely culprit: the family’s cat”. Is the cat the villain, or is it the hero? It likely depends on your perspective.

I’m Jude Terror, filling in for your usual comics news rumourmonger, Rich Johnston, who was forced to take the day off to tend to an extremely itchy rash on a part of his body we’d rather not mention. A press release describes Hairball, a four-issue mini-series that kicks off in April:

In HAIRBALL, a young girl named Anna begins to suspect that her black cat is behind all her troubles: her parents’ fighting and the strange whispering in her ear at night.. As she tries her best to rid herself of this creature, she finds that it’s not so easy to kill. But just maybe, the cat is the only thing standing between her and an even greater evil that threatens to destroy her life.

“I’ve written stories of international intrigue and locked room murder mysteries, but in twenty years of making comics, I’ve rarely been compelled to create a horror story,” said Kindt in the press release. “And for good reason. I was actually sick to my stomach when I finished writing the end of issue 1. I grossed myself out. I knew that I’d need someone fearless to draw it. (There was no way I was going to.) I knew that Tyler was the perfect artist and co-creator for the story. And when Tyler and Hilary started sending his pages in, it was just as horrible as I’d imagined —in the very best way.”

“The best horror stories peel back and slowly reveal the horrors of everyday life,” said Jenkins. “At its heart, HAIRBALL is a story about a family, one that treats each other horribly. Is there a reason for their terrible behavior? Could the cause of all their problems really be Bestie?”

“HAIRBALL can be described as Junji Ito Meets Hayao Miyazaki meets Stephen King,” said Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson. “The story is strange and supernatural, but the world is so familiar and the family’s trauma is so real that you will not forget Bestie and her family.”

“Meow,” said my cat, sitting on my desk while I write this. Can she read the words on the screen? I’ll never know. Cats are a mystery. Look for Hairball #1 in stores next April with a cover by Kindt and a variant cover by THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH’s Martin Simmonds.