Tuesday, March 28, 2006

One of My Horror Comics - The Mantus Files

I had a devilishly fun time writing The Mantus Files, a horror graphic novel about an investigator of the paranormal. Though the title might sound like a ripoff, it actually pre-dates the X-Files. I just happened to be influenced by The Night Stalker and The Norliss Tapes just like Chris Carter.

Peter Mantus, my haunted hero, was scarred by his past. His father was a sorcerer who tried to sacrifice him in a dark ritual. Surviving that, he devoted his time to opposing the forces of evil.

In the Crescent City
The storyline took him to New Orleans and cool places like Jackson Square and St. Louis Cemetery to investigate the disappearance of his friend and mentor, the man who saved him from his father, and Mantus had to face down vampire cults, hideous demons and a dark magician with world domination on his mind.

The artist and the inker had different styles (I was fond of saying at the time it was Joe Kubert artist being inked by a Russ Manning inker) so the full potential of the pencils didn't make it to the page with all of their eerie glory, but there were some great moments and flourishes.

I've posted a few pages on Photobucket - kind of large jpegs. It's usually available from Nostalgia Zone and turns up on ebay now and then, if you're just dying for the whole story.


Graveyard Monsters

Tarot reading

3 comments:

Sidney said...

Glad that info was useful. :-)

Steve Willhite said...

I think I remeber this one. Didn't it start out with someone being burned up in a bathtub? Something that actually happed in Louisianna didn't it?

I remember thsis being pretty good. My favorite work of yours is still Blood Hunters (deserved a better cover) and I'm pretty partial to The Scary Book (deserved better artwork).

Sidney said...

It does start with a murder/suicide that brings Mantus to New Orleans to investigate. Glad you liked it and Blood Hunter.

Yeah, the Blood Hunter cover was a bit of a problem. I suggested just a hint of a creature's hand, but the publisher didn't want to do that, so I suggested a swamp which prompted the question: What does a swamp look like? The BH cover which can be viewed at sidisalive.com depicts a particularly lush swamp. I've always said it looks a little more like a rain forest.

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