You’ve heard “make mine Marvel.” But what about Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave? The latter is the title of a new revenge thriller from Oni Press, written by Justin Jordan with art by Chris Shehan. And as Jordan describes it, it’s all the fault of Oni Press President and Publisher Hunter Gorinson that the book has that title.
“Don’t blame me, that was Hunter Gorinson’s doing!” Jordan told Comic Book Club over email. “I just wanted to name it Long Lonesome Grave which, looking at it, is also long, but I am nevertheless throwing Hunter under the bus here.”
In the book, a man named Harley Creed returns home to Appalachia after a stint in prison to finish up business… Only to get hit by a curse that binds him to the location. So instead of leaving, he goes on a rampage to find the person who cursed him, before he dies. Yikes!
To find out more about the inspiration behind the book, which hits stores in February, read on.
Comic Book Club: This book is part of the “long-titled comic book series” craze… Why so many words, Justin?
Justin Jordan: Don’t blame me, that was Hunter Gorinson’s doing! I just wanted to name it Long Lonesome Grave which, looking at it, is also long, but I am nevertheless throwing Hunter under the bus here.
There’s a matter-of-factness to the magic in this series. What led to this (relatively speaking) grounded approach?
It felt like the right vibe. Folk magic, or rather, the belief in it, was still a thing among older people when I was a kid. My grandfather would dowse for water, and if you got a burn they’d read a Bible verse and blow it out.
None of this was pyrotechnics or expected to produce some kind of flashy result. It was working class magic for working class people. So that felt like the right approach, and it lends itself to horror, I think.
Revenge tales are a dime (store novel) a dozen… How do you make sure when you’re playing in this sandbox you keep things fresh? Or is leaning into the tropes part of the fun?
Part of it is leaning into the tropes. They become tropes for a reason, you know? Because they work. That said, I look at LLG as something of an inverted revenge tale. While Harley is out to kill a bunch of people, it’s in service of finding out who is trying to take revenge against HIM.
You’re from Appalachia, a place that is certainly steeped in a lot of potential misconceptions from the outside. What’s your take on the area, and how does it come out in this book?
I think about, sometimes, the difference between how the town I went to school in changed between when I was a kid and now. And while I’ve got a little bit of old, we’re still only talking about the difference between the eighties and today.
Decay. The word that comes to mind is decay. When I was a kid, there were three elementary schools in my district, several factories around the town, a main street with storefronts. All that is gone. The school I went to is closed, like two of the three. The factories are long gone, the stores are empty.
It’s a place that was alive and is now dying. And the people there, those left, aren’t stupid, they see it too. And it affects you. So I wanted to try and bring that across, how these forgotten scorned places are dying but still have living breathing people in them.
Chris Shehan seems perfect for this type of series… What has the collaboration been like?
Great! Chris has been knocking it out of the park, and gets what I’m trying to do in the scripts. Which has the advantage of creating the illusion I know what I’m doing, which I am always a fan of.
What sort of violent, messed up acts can we expect Harley Creed to get into over the course of these four issues?
I mean he starts the book by driving two railroad spikes through a dude’s eyes, so you can expect a fair amount of assorted depravity…
Mine Is A Long, Lonesome Grave #1 hits stores on February 12 from Oni Press.
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