THE ROAD TO LONG HAUL – Speaking With The Writers Of Long Haul, And Its Pending Release
With the release of Long Haul, the latest issue in the Storm King’s Dark and Twisted series coming up soon, we got an opportunity to speak with the two writers, Cullen Bunn and Heath Amodio.
Long Haul is the story of two brothers, Carl and Danny. When their sister, Sarah, goes missing and law enforcement is no help, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Their journey leads them to hunt The Nine, a cadre of long-haul serial killers. Responsible for hundreds of deaths across the interstate highways. When the brothers start traveling around, asking all the wrong questions, they quickly find the hunters don’t take kindly to being hunted.
*** DISCLAIMER: This interview has been transcribed verbatim, and as such may contain grammatical errors ***
Macabre Daily (MD): So with Long Haul, I see it is a very character-focused story. How’d the idea of it come about, did it start with coming up with the heroes and the villains?
Heath Amodio (HA): ‘Well actually started, it was inspired by a documentary about long haul killers that blew my mind because of how many there are. It kind of went from the fact that they're, like, 300 active serial killers at any time across American highways. And we're like, well that's obviously a premise to the story…. we decided to add a family dynamic at the heart of it with the two brothers and the missing sister and, and kind of branch out from there. I mean, you know, the villains are always the fun characters to create, because you get to go way outside the box with those types of characters. But as far as the brothers, we wanted them to be people that even though what they're doing is brutal, and bloody, that you genuinely cared about them throughout.’
Cullen Bunn (CB): ‘Yeah, Heath brought this idea to me, I think, I don't know if he had just watched that documentary, or if it had just been sitting in his mind for a while. But he brought the idea of these, these long-haul killers, and doing a story around that. So this was this was his initial brainstorm.’
MD: Was there any particular inspiration around the specifics of the family? That they were from that kind of lower socio-economic area, and that particular kind of skill set and attitude.
HA: ‘I think part of it is that you know, the people that feel like they don't have any help in these types of situations tend to be the lower class families that don't get the media attention and stuff like that. And, you know, a lot of time, you don't even hear about their loved one going missing. So you have these two blue-collar guys, that a lot of people can relate to, trying to deal with this, you know, this severe situation that they're kind of thrown into…. We figured, let's focus on a family dynamic like that, to where these guys absolutely feel like they have no other choice but to take matters into their own hands. Like, they're not going to get on the news, right? They're not going to. They don't have the money to go send other people out or hire investigators or anything like that. They have to get their hands bloody, literally, in order to try to find their sister.’
CB: ‘You know, I grew up in in a pretty rural area. And I know a lot of guys a lot of people a lot of families that if you were to wrong that family in some way. You'd be lucky if the police got involved, right, that the family themselves takes matters into their own hands. And, and I definitely wanted to draw on that sort of dynamic with these characters.’
MD: So did you guys approach Storm Kings with this idea, or did they approach you to write for dark and twisted
CB: ‘I had actually met Sandy and some of the Storm King team at a convention I think it was New York Comic Con maybe, or C2E2 in Chicago. I met them as a customer I came up to buy some books. And we just started talking about, you know, the potential of working together doing some stories with Storm King. And then when Heath and I started developing this idea, it just felt like the right fit. It felt like this might be something that would fit in, you know, in the Storm King Library.’
HA: ‘And they've been amazing to work with, also, which is not always the case in this industry…. every step of the way every part of the process was really enjoyable.’
MD: Did you guys get to pick the artist for Long Haul, or was that Storm King’s decision?
HA: ‘Storm King brought Andrea, but he and Cullen had done a bunch of work together.’
CB: ‘Yeah, I couldn't honestly remember. I've worked with Andrea, so many on so many projects. I mean, I'm doing another project with him right now. And I just couldn't remember if we brought him on or Storm King suggested him. The interesting thing is, I probably would have suggested him for this project. If Storm King hadn't come to us with him as an option.’
MD: I think he really captured the gritty kind of style that I think you're going for. That sort of very grounded but grisly kind of look.
HA: ‘He nailed it. But the funniest part is, he's like the most joyous person I've ever met in my life. Like the guy is always bubbly, always happy. And yet, he turns around with these brutal, disgusting scenes, and you're like, I don't even know how you're able to have those two things coexist at the same time. But yeah, I mean, he's a blast to work with, for sure. There's always energy in every correspondence.’
MD: Cullen you wrote The Empty Man, which got adapted into a movie in 2020. I can see how like Long Haul could quite easily be turned into something like a miniseries or a movie, is that something you kind of hope for? Do you seek those sorts of opportunities?
CB: ‘Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's impossible to say we don't hope for that, right? I mean, obviously, I'm always up for it. I want the book to stand on its own and be appreciated and enjoyed, for what it is. And then if something else happens with it, that's awesome.
HA: I think there might be some kind of level of expectation when working with Storm Kings, because of its connection to John Carpenter. You know, I mean, people may go pick up a book, assuming it's going to be a future project, but we didn't really, you know, enter the story with that in mind so much.
MD: Is there anything that you guys use for a source of inspiration or enthusiasm to kind of get the ideas flowing?
CB: ‘I read a lot of so when I'm working on a project, I want to I read a lot of either comics or short stories or bits of novels that I feel like are maybe in similar veins or are in the same arena…I've got a big collection of soundtracks and then of course with Spotify and everything else, I'll put in music that I think is inspiring.’
HA: ‘For me, it's usually what movie scores set the right tone for the story I'm trying to tell. And then like if there's a dialogue that I really want to nail, and it's not what I normally hear on a regular basis, I'll try to find an audiobook that's from a writer that does dialogue really well. And hopefully, the reader is actually good and reads it in the proper, like, accent and dialogue and stuff like that.’
MD: So, Heath, I noticed you've, you've formed Overlook Media Multimedia. Last year. Can you tell {me} a bit about that?
HA: ‘We can go back to Hustle and Heart which Cullen and I started in 2018, where we wanted to give creators an opportunity to kind of have a little bit more involvement in the adaptations of their work… But then Cullen, and I wanted to find a way of doing things where we got to work with people that we admire. So with Overlook, instead of bringing books out and hoping someone likes it, we go directly to the people we really want to work with and say hey, do you want to just collaborate on a comic book? We have projects with Katee Sackhoff, Kristin Kreuk from Smallville, and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live. And you know, these are people that we just enjoy the opportunity to work with, and we get to make cool comics, and then maybe if something comes of it down the line… We've developed projects with Clive Barker, and I got to develop a project with Method Man who, I've been a massive Wu-Tang fan for my entire life, … those are life experiences that whether anything comes out of it or not. You've got that to live off of for the rest of your life. Right. So, you know, after being on a call with Method Man talking about hearing about a cartoon he wants to do, like, you can retire after that phone call because it doesn't get any better than that. Right? So it's just an opportunity to kind of expand and get to work with people that we have our own fandom for.’
MD: That sounds great. We look forward to seeing what you both create in the future.
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