Graham Annable has had a wide and varied career, having worked with everyone from Chuck Jones to Guillermo del Toro, and from Laika Studio to LucasArts.. His “Grickle” comics scored him a Harvey nomination in 2002, and Boxtrolls (the animated feature he directed with Anthony Stacchi) earned an Academy Award nom in 2015. His latest project comes from the tradition of Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, offering up thrills and chills for horror fans of all ages. “Eerie Tales from the School of Screams,” available now from First Second, collects a series of short, spooky stories, all told from a schoolhouse that’s more than it seems.
We sat down from Annable to talk about his career, his horror inspirations, and which stories scared his kids the most. We would like to thank him for his time.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity
You have your fingers in a lot of pies! You were the storyboard artist on Kubo [and the Two Strings]. You’re an Academy Award nominee for The Boxtrolls. You’re a Harvey Award nominee as well.
GA: Long ago, yeah! The Harvey nomination was awhile ago now. I always tell people it’s not like I had a master plan laid out for doing the things I’ve been doing. I’ve been lucky enough to do the stuff I’ve been interested in. And people keep asking me to come along and help out [laughs].
You also got your start in LucasArts.
GA: It’s funny. Over the years, because I have a variety of things, it never fails that– like for a lot of promotional stuff for Boxtrolls, whenever I mentioned that I worked for LucasArts, there’s always like one or two people in the audience that are like “Oh my god! Did you work on Monkey Island?” The fans for those specific games are the biggest fans of all time. They’re immersed in them. They don’t even care about the movie or whatever! They want to know “What was it like at LucasArts?” [laughs]
So how did “Eerie Tales” come about? What was the spark?
GA: For me, I’ve always loved the genre of horror. And I’m certainly flirted in that realm quite a bit, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the independent comics I did, “The Book of Grickle,” that of course published over a decade ago now. That was a collection of the previous decade of self published things that I had done. It was published with Alternative Comics. And definitely some of those short stories could be called horror, I guess. I don’t know. Like any artist I don’t know that I like to put it all in a perfect box. But I understand the need for people to know what the heck they’re buying or getting.
For this book, I was doing a number of those short stories for myself. I didn’t really have an agenda in that I wasn’t planning to make a big horror book or anything. I just knew that I wanted to write sort of short horror stories. And I just started doing them and just roughing them out. Pretty soon I had four of them done. And lucky enough to have a literary agent, I was just like “Hey! You think anybody would be interested in a horror comic?” And this was right in the middle of me doing the “Peter & Ernesto” books that are for early readers. Really different market [laughs].
And it’s funny, like everything I’ve done, I’d done it for myself. I made the stuff I want to read. I’m not great at thinking about what an audience is for it. And I was making these horror stories for myself. I had these grand ideas that they would be for adults, an independent comic. Maybe Fantagraphics or someone would be interested in it. And my agent read it, and she’s like “These are perfect for middle school! You don’t got any gore. There’s no adult themed things in it. But it’s perfectly scary and strange.” And I’m like “You’re right!” So we just had a conversation with First Second because they published the “Peter & Ernesto” books and I just love those people there. I firmly thought they’d be like “Yeah, no. Not horror. We’re not doing horror.”
Continued belowAnd Mark Siegel and Calista [Brill] were like “Oh my god! This is like the greatest Halloween book! Let’s do it! Let’s make this happen here!” So next thing I knew, I was sort of rounding out a fifth story to it and creating the whole umbrella story to the whole thing. Gosh, it’s almost been— I’d say it’s probably been a decade’s worth of work again from when I first did that first story to where we are now— with you holding the actual book.
So yeah! Crazy! Once again, not a mastermind plan had I to do a horror book. I just wanted to do a horror book. I’m like this [laughs].
So it’s just sort of a natural thing? Like if I put this little bit here and I put this little bit here, we have a nice little frame for them, and it all fits together?
GA: Yeah! It just kind of happened that way. And it was fun. I kinda was a little nervous when First Second said “Yes! We’re gonna make the horror book. We just need you to add a cohesive piece to it all.” I was a little bit scared. Like “Oh gosh! I always thought of these as singular stories. And I’m not sure how to end it.” But it was the fun I had in a narrative way of trying to puzzle and put those pieces together. I was kind of happy with how it turned out. Kind of surprised myself with it.
I’m looking at some of the art too. We’ve got the outer space one here. These tentacles are popping out of guys’ eyes! Like… not inappropriate for middle schoolers, but definitely creepy.
GA: [laughs] It’s on the line! I will admit that it very on the line. I hope this is a book that— it’s aimed at 8-12. This one’s definitely for the brave kids.
So a lot of these were just stories you had? There weren’t necessarily specific influences? These were all something you just did for you, sort of in isolation?
GA: Yeah… it’s not fair to say they were truly written in isolation. I’m of the age where I grew up on Stephen King. I think I saw a meme the other day I thought totally made sense— where so many of our generation ended up reading Stephen King at too early an age [laughs]. And it affected all of us every since. And I would have to say that’s true of me. I don’t know that I was a horror fan before that. I remember being like 11? 12? And a buddy of mine was like “You have to read this!” And it was Salem’s Lot. And that book— I love that story. And it just set me down a path where I was reading everything Stephen King was writing at the time. I guess that just blossomed into an absolute love and appreciation for horror stories. Like so many people, I blame Stephen King.
There’s one here about a town that gets taken by fish monsters. Would it be fair to say there’s a little Lovecraft in there too?
GA: You know, it’s funny! I’ve come to Lovecraft really late. But I realized, like all things, I know from reading interview with Stephen King— well, any major horror writer. They all reference Lovecraft. And Lovecraft finds its way throughout all of their stories. I guess I’m probably influenced by the echo of Lovecraft, that other generation of writers that came to Lovecraft. In the last decade— I always obviously knew of him, but I never really read much. So it’s been interesting to kind of hit that now at this stage when for so many people that’s been the direct source of inspiration.
How have First Second been to work with overall?
GA: They’ve been amazing. I really had a great time. I worked with Alex Lu as my editor. And it was just great. Alex was so involved in a great way. Comics can be a pretty solo mission. And I love that about it. But I’m also used to working in the animation and games industry where you’re working with a whole team. There’s a whole hierarchy in place to give feedback. When you’re in comics, you can be out on a little boat in the ocean. And Alex was great. Alex was so amazing to work on this book with. He was the wall you could bounce off of. It helped mold a lot of things.
Continued belowIt’s interesting looking through and seeing how many genres you have You have the Gillman/fishmonster story. You have the sci-fi story, The old man and the portal somewhere. When you had a lot of these stories, did you actually have to cut down? I know you said you had to write your framing device. Were these just the ones you had? Or was there a little bit of curation?
GA: There was for sure, yeah. I still have a few more in my back pocket that I definitely want to explore and flesh out. I hit a point where I was like “These are the ones I’m gonna go with for this round of it, because they’re the most developed, and the most solidified of the bunch.” But when you’re working in that stuff, it inevitably springboards into other ideas when you’re working on it. And I’ve learned enough in my career now that, man, if you even get a whisper of an idea, write it down. Do a sketch. Something. So that later on, you have that documentation that will hopefully jog your brain again. And/or you come back to it and you suddenly have a perspective that elevates it that you never would have thought of. All through making this book I was doing lots of little side notes. “Like, ooo! I want to do something about that.”
I would be very happy if the rest of my life was mostly pointing in the direction of making more horror comics. [laughs]. I’ve really enjoyed this journey of making the book. I would say out of all the things I’ve worked on, video games, films, books, this particular book feels like the most uncompromised version of me, and what I like to write, and what I like to draw, I guess. I recognized that doesn’t happen very often. I’m so happy that I got to make this book the way I got to make it.
Would you ever consider… this might be kind of a dangerous question to ask… would these maybe be something you would like to see in animation? Or do you think “These are comics!” And this is the best version of them? Are these something you would like to branch out with and see what they would look like in animation or stop motion?
GA: I would love to see it animated. Because it becomes something different. I guess as a creator, I feel best beginning at comics. Because, again, comics is that solo mission. You do get to craft every element and kind of control it the way you think want to see it. And of course, when you get to animation, then you’re onto teams of people. There’s a lot more trust involved. And it’s super rewarding. But it’s a different beast. And things just inevitably will evolve. So that the story, the way it was as a comic book, isn’t going to work the same as animation. Even when you’re reading the comic, and you as a reader think you can feel it and see it as animation, it still will be something different when it gets to that other step. And sure I would love to see it animated. One of the other things I’ve been doing for the last decade or so is making animated shorts on YouTube.
I love what film does with sound and sound effects. Things that you can’t do in comics. There’s other devices that are fun to play with in the medium but aren’t available in comics. But I like comics as the starting place. It feels like the best way to craft the thing you want to make to kind of get at the core of it. And then go from there.
The artwork is amazing. The one thing too is the color in the book as well. How it’s sort of mostly black and white, but like the old silent films where they have the filter over it too, you’ve got the orange story. And the green story. Was that always a part of it? Or was that more when you were putting these together?
GA: It came a little bit later. I definitely had always envisioned it being fairly monochromatic. I don’t think color is honestly my strong suit. If I get too many options it starts to turn into a mishmash. I want to keep it simple so I can focus the narrative the way I want to focus it. I always thought of it as a pretty monochromatic look to it. I feel like it added a horror element to it. But when First Second wanted to turn this into a bigger book with five stories and whatever else in it, I thought it would be fun to have each story have its own flavor, its own color. So that you always know where you are. And colors give emotion. Colors give a feel to things. And so the orange story will feel a certain way. The purple story will feel a certain way. I liked that idea that each of the stories would have it own color palette,
Continued belowThis might be another dangerous one. Do you have a favorite? Or do you have one that you think kind of stands as… even if it’s not your favorite, it’s your distilled vision for the book?
GA: It’s so hard to say, because each is its own thing. I’ll do the pad answer of like “They’re all my children. I love them all!” [laughs]
It’s alright! I knew what I was walking into with that one!
GA: I will say that if I had to pick a favorite in the book, I was probably the most pleased with the way ‘Face in the Forest’ came together. That’s the orange one. Because I felt that had layers of emotional stuff to it. And the way it ended— to me at least. Who knows? The reader may disagree— for me, it felt like it was the right gut punch that you get at the end that you didn’t expect hopefully or anticipate. I think I was most pleased with that. I will say I’ve got two sons who are 15 and 12 now. But they were a little younger when I was putting this book together finally. They were my first real audience to read it. I don’t know if either of them is really a horror fan. But they were willing to read it. And far and away the space one disturbed them both alone.
Well yeah! There’s snakey tentacle things popping out of guys’ eyes!
GA: I realized that story really came from John Carpenter’s The Thing. It was definitely where I was trying to make my own space version of that, I suppose. But yeah, that one disturbed by kids the most.
And that one is kind of interesting too, because the way dialog is used in this is interesting. It’s when it’s needed. There’s a lot of times when there’s a lot of quiet moments. You’ve mentioned with comics there’s not really that element of sound. But were you able to kind of find that? Like even if you can’t hear it, here’s how we can make you think you feel it? Was that something in the back of your head?
GA: Always. That to me is one of my favorite things about creating comics and comic strips. It’s trying to create that sense of space. And I guess timing too. Long ago, when I was doing the “Grickle” comics– which it was actually those “Grickle” comics that landed me the job working as a storyboard artist on Coraline long ago. I didn’t really have a storyboard portfolio. But I did have those comics. Everyone always said “The way you do comics feels like animation.” The level of moment-to-moment to them. And I love playing with that space in panels.
I guess another thing for me instinctively is aesthetically, I don’t enjoy comics very often when there’s too much dialog. I want it to be as visual as it could possibly be. So I sort of strive for that in my stuff. I really try to minimize how much anybody talks or how much they have to say. Because for me it’s always been the fun of looking at things.visually and feeling movement through panels that’s been exciting to me anyway for the medium.
Sometimes too you pick up a book and see just a wall of text!
GA: Yeah! I want to see cool drawings [laughs]. And not to diss it, because it can work. There’s really amazing comic artists that know how to– maybe that’s part of it too. I don’t feel confident in my level of writing dialog that I could get away with writing a wall of text and have anybody stay with it [laugh].
“Eerie Tales from the School of Screams” is available now. You can find it in stores, or on Macmillan’s website.
