Michael W. Conrad isn’t a fan of haunted house stories. And yet, here we are with Oni Press‘s new book Plague House, which starts in a haunted house and ends with something much bigger, and much more revelatory.
“Haunted house stuff can be really dull for me,” Conrad told Comic Book Club over email. “I think I was less interested in the ‘What happens in the haunted house?’ or ‘Why is the house haunted?’ than the ‘What is the haunted house?’ Plague House offers a potential answer to that.”
Don’t worry, Conrad’s partner in crime on the book, Dave Chisholm, does love haunted house stories, and that comes out in every creepy page and jump scare in the book. In advance of the Plague House #1’s FOC (Final Order Cutoff) date on Monday, March 11, we chatted with the team about crafting the series, the unique approach to narration, and much more.
Comic Book Club: The narrative device you use here, narration after the fact, I feel like you don’t see very often in comics — what led to the decision to employ that?
Michael W. Conrad: I like to play with chronology, so having the narration come from a later period sets the stage for me to be able to have the primary characters interact with the scenes in a reflective way. I think this isn’t used in comics often because it disallows the idea that our hero is gonna die at any moment. Thankfully in a story about ghosts, I am unburdened by death as an ending perhaps.
Dave Chisholm: Comics’ relationship with narration is weird—so much of the time it’s used without any intentionality. I love the narration in this book. It allows for a third stream of info: one being the content of the visuals, two being the content of the narration, and the third being the way the two rub against each other. It really reveals a lot about Del!
There are a number of jump scares, which is extremely hard to do (in my opinion) in the still comic book page. How do you employ them effectively?
Conrad: All credit here is given to Dave. As a writer I can influence pace and reveals via page turns and the awareness of how that may contribute, but the art (as with much of anything in comics) does the heavy lifting.
Chisholm: Oh gosh—I’d say that Michael is always aware of the power of the page turn. Build suspense on an odd-numbered page to reveal something upsetting on the page turn. For the effectiveness of a page-turn “jump scare” moment, I tend to think in terms of omitting some aspect for every moment EXCEPT for the jump scare. Like, if you never use an extreme close-up or a particular color except for that single moment, it can approximate or at least symbolize that jump-scare effect, even if readers (probably) don’t end up actually jumping in fear!
The first issue introduces a number of characters, jumps throughout time… The press release calls it “disorienting,” which is very accurate. Was the goal to make us, the reader, feel unhinged from reality like a ghost? Or if not… What was the goal?
Conrad: I like that it might feel disorienting. Most of the media that has mattered most to me has taken a bit of work. The leaps through time are not an effort to confuse the reader, rather it is meant to offer a story that might have legs on a reread, or when consumed as a whole. I hope readers aren’t alienated by this approach, but I have to believe that everyone is well equipped to get through it with relative ease.
Chisholm: I’m all about trusting the reader while also pushing for as much visual, moment-to-moment clarity as possible. Those little storytelling beats should be unambiguously clear, but shifting from scene-to-scene…I like those shifts to hit with a bit of a punch, to perhaps be a bit disorienting.
The color palate varies wildly… What was your mission statement? Was there a goal to have past sequences pop differently than “future?” Or was it more about the feel of the scene?
Conrad: Again, this is best answered by Dave. I do think I made some color notes in the script about how one might approach the flashbacks, but Dave is best left on his own when determining color. I am always delighted by his choices.
Chisholm: I definitely have a pretty solid organization of colors for this project. Certain colors symbolize specific elements of the story, whether emotional, temporal, or a change of setting. Most often this involves omitting a key color so that, when it shows up, it carries contextual weight. If everything has every color all the time, then no color carries meaning.
This is clearly set in the haunted house genre — where did you take your inspiration for this? Or what was on your mood board, so to speak?
Conrad: Haunted house stuff can be really dull for me. I think I was less interested in the “What happens in the haunted house?” or “Why is the house haunted?” than the “What is the haunted house?” Plague House offers a potential answer to that.
Chisholm: Unlike Michael, I really dig the genre, I even really dig the kind of cheesy ghost-hunting tv shows. So this is PERFECT for me.
Plague House #1 hits comic book stores on April 2, 2025. FOC (Final Order Cutoff) is on Monday, March 11, so let your local store you want to visit the Plague House today!
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