Justin Jordan has built a reputation for gritty, character-driven horror stories. Mine is a long, lonely tomb, and he delves into folk tales and the horrors of Appalachian roots.
With the unforgettable art by Chris Shehan (Autumn), the new comic follows Harley Creed, a violent ex-con man who was plagued by the past and suffered a deadly curse. The comic is a blend of folk horror and crime thriller, set in the ominous small town of Briar Falls, West Virginia. This is a place where the air is thick, both secret and subtle magic. Harley only has seven days to live after someone has given him six, and the countdown forces him to confront his sin and his thirst of blood. But who is behind 160 heads and can he survive the moving supernatural horror?
In our interviews, Jordan delves into the origins of the story, the weight of the themes of Harley’s journey, and how he and Shehan created stories of both the scary and strange catharticism.
My folk horror originates from a long, lonely grave
For Jordan, the setting of Briar Falls was more than just a background. That was a personal reflection. “I’m from Appalachia. I literally grew up on one side of the Appalachian Mountains in southern Pennsylvania,” he shares. “The area is a microcosm of a place where you don’t see huge amounts in pop culture. It’s a corrupt, rural outskirts.”
That collapse is a fertile basis for folk horror, Jordan explains. The eerie and often incomprehensible small island community traditions have shaped his vision for the book.
“When I was growing up, people from my grandparents’ generation still believed in and practiced Folk Magic, but they didn’t consider it Folk Magic,” he says. “Dowsing for the water, reading biblical poems, blowing away burns and healing them. It all tied to the theme of being outside and at the mercy of something you don’t understand. Masu.”
This tension between the outsider and insider’s perspective is central to the horrors of Harley’s plight. Folk horror is a haunting force of rules that you don’t understand, as Jordan sees, and Briar Falls embodies it in every twisted corner.
Creating Harley Creed: The Complex Protagonist
Harley Creed isn’t your typical horror protagonist. As Jordan explains to him, “Harley is not a man who is unfairly treating him for vengeance. He is a man who has made many mistakes and there is little to regret, You’re trying to understand who’s trying to get revenge on him.”
This reversal of the normal revenge story adds complexity to Harley’s character. “He’s still a massive underdog in this fight and basically fights against enemies who have men, guns and magic when he has one of them,” Jordan points out. “I hope people are rooting for him despite everything.”
The tension between Harley’s past and his fight for survival continues to speculate on readers. Does he deserve red? Can he find it in a town where he wants to see him dead?
Courtesy of Oni Press
Shadow Magic: depicting the horror of Chris Shehan and the Folk
Folk Magic permeated my vibe as a long, lonely tomb, and Jordan worked closely with Shehan to make the supernatural elements feel uneasy and ambiguous. “The trick for us was to balance anxiety with a delicate balance,” Jordan says. “The magic had to be something Harley would just be hooked…or maybe it was real.”
Visually, this meant relying on natural images and shadows to create a sense of foreboding. “Many qualities, many shadows,” Jordan emphasizes. As Jordan explains, his collaboration with Shehan has elevated the story. It also helped that Chris boarded early enough as he was thinking about how he would draw things when I was writing it. ”
Courtesy of Oni Press
Balancing violence and fear
Mine is long, and lonely graves do not steer away from graphic violence, but Jordan cares to make it useful in the story. “If something is wall-to-wall misery, you’re paralyzed by it,” he explains. “But mixing it with a bit of humor helps with a collision of darkness.”
Jordan applies this philosophy to fear itself. “If it’s all murdered and there’s no suspense, you’ll be bored,” he says. “But on the contrary, if that’s all about it, you lose the shock. So I tried to find the rhythm we were showing.
As Shehan’s art commands both subtle and visceral moments, the comic balances readers to haunt the last page for a long time.
Fatal hexagonal clock
Hexagon Cursing Harley acts as a driving force in the story, adding both urgency and tension. “The actual stakes when you choke the clock just adds jet fuel to your story,” explains Jordan. “Harley can’t just leave and don’t have time to get in the way of allies and resources, so he turns his back on the wall. This is the kind of thing that makes him want a character.”
This sense of time increases the stake and pushes Harley to face his fear and enemies head-on.
Courtesy of Oni Press
Courtesy of Oni Press
The quest for justice, revenge, and red
At its core, mine is long, and the lonely tomb is a thin line meditation between justice and vengeance. “One of the things Harley regrets in his life is definitely one of the good things he did and now he’s paying for the act,” Jordan reveals. “Is he worth it? Does he deserve to survive? Is he justice? Hopefully, these are all questions for readers.”
For Jordan, these moral stumps are essential to the narrative impact. “We have a lot of punishments that may be worthy of not having the right to be given to us,” he says. “Anyway, that’s the line between justice and vengeance.”
Courtesy of Oni Press
Jordan encourages readers to tackle the same question in Harley Creed’s struggle to survive both the curse and his own demon. It’s just as tragic as it makes you think, making you wonder if there’s redness in places like Briar Falls.
