This September, writer Eliot Rahal (“Hot Lunch Special”) and artist Clara Meath (“Shadow Play”) are telling an alien abduction story with a personal twist, in AfterShock’s “Midnight Vista.”
“At its core, ‘Midnight Vista’ is about loneliness, love, and the lost,” said Rahal, in a press release provided by AfterShock. “I’m excited for people to read this because my entire goal was to take pure science-fiction and make it feel real.”
To do so, Rahal has spun a tale about a boy named Oliver Flores and his stepfather, Nomar Perez, both of whom disappear late one New Mexico evening. While Oliver’s mother and neighbors believe his stepfather kidnapped him, Oliver returns, years later, to tell them something different: that he and his stepfather were abducted by aliens.
“The problem is … no one believes him,” says Rahal. “And so in order to prove his sanity, Oliver must escape police authority and find a way to reconnect with [his] stepfather — actions which only prove the public’s narrative that he’s not in [a] healthy mental state.”
The story is inspired by Rahal’s belief that he had a close encounter of his own as a child, and is his latest attempt at making sense of whatever it is that happened to him.
“That event — whatever it was — was the most important thing that ever happened up until meeting my wife and getting married. It has shaped a lot of my personality. It’s a vital part of my experience,” says Rahal. “And the craziest part [of] all of it is … I barely remember any of it.”
Meath will be joined by colorist Mark Englert (“Revival”) and letterer Taylor Esposito (“Interceptor”) on the book’s interiors, while Juan Doe (“Dark Ark”) and Rahzzah (“Weapon X”) will provide main and variant covers. You can check out both covers from the first issue and unlettered preview pages for “Midnight Vista” here, and you can pick up the book in stores and online on September 4.