Artist Mike Choi claims he is not a “horror guy.” But after talking to him for a few minutes, it quickly becomes clear that the opposite is true in the statement. The moment I sat down, I was preparing for an interview, he threw away some of the best examples of horror to start a conversation, from Martyr (a French new limb classic) to hostels and even Bernie Wrightson’s 10-page comic Jennifer.
Further evidence of Choi’s affinity for horror is a film project designed to explore both the present and the future, his upcoming work, a series of comics, illustrated prose, television and film projects for AWA and Dizzy Entertainment’s new horror collection, The Future of Fear.
Choi’s contribution is an illustrated prose novel that incorporates the concept of “internet challenge” and adds a serial killer. Written by Peter Tyerias (author of The Amazing Mecha Samurai Empire), the story focuses on friendship killers who like to play twisted games with the latest toys. He chooses a target and then asks him to kill someone in the live stream, so the act itself should be witnessed. If they refuse, the person they love dies.
It is a clever concept that feels as urgent as inevitability given the current trends in technology. Choi gives each illustration the same feeling, infusing the digital image with a deep sense of fear and destiny. Completely capture the mission statements of the collection. Look at the fear that will surely come to the present.
The Fearful Future debuted in an illustrated novel called Look Out, written by Dan Bailey and illustrated by Tim Bradstreet. It follows a recently divorced man who works as a fire observation deck at a remote forest front post base. He finds a piece of paper and finds instructions on how to survive all night, but laughs in a mischievous way. He knows it needs to be dusk.
I sat with Choi in San Diego Comic Con to kill or get killed and told him why he’s not a horror guy.
Ricardo Serrano: I was afraid of something you were itching to get in more
Mike Choi: I’m not necessarily a horror fan. I’m not looking forward to the next horror. What I love is good entertainment. I love great movies. And if they happen to be scary, I enjoy watching them. Before the interview began, we were just talking about martial artists. It is notoriously split in that it either enjoys it or doesn’t enjoy it. It affects you in the way I think all artists are trying to do. So I’m going to look for a good movie and if they happen to be a scary movie, I’ll enjoy the side of it too. And I deal with not sleeping afterwards.
Serrano: A mention of martial artists may suggest that you are more interested in fear than you suggest. What other horror books or movies did you bring when you were working on a kill or killed?
Choi: I don’t necessarily want to put this book in a pigeon hole as fear. I know that is what we say about books and it belongs to this genre. However, I borrowed a lot in terms of how I wanted my readers to feel from films like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs. They are very similar films, but they share a lot with the horror, but the reason they are so popular now is because they put so many ideas together and they have become a unique film.
When you leave the theatre after seeing these movies, you are being gobsmacked. And as you watch it, your adrenaline rises and your heart beats faster. I don’t know where I’m going. However, they are not entirely called horror movies. They are actually considered thrillers.
If you call kills or get killed in the thriller, I obviously agree with it. If you call it horror, yes, there’s definitely something out there that took from a horror movie. I think a lot of fear comes from being driven by a normal person to do it in certain situations where you would never consider doing it regularly. I think that way of thinking can be very scary.
I say I’m not a horror fan, but it’s hard to take the ideas and see how other genres come in. Event Horizons, for example, may be a little far from the world in terms of context, but the way to establish a place, time and atmosphere unfolds human stories in terms of what to do with regret, failure, and guilt. If you decide to live with it in the first place, I ask you to consider how we live with it. And that’s the purpose of the film. You want to call it a horror movie, great. But I think there’s more there too.
Serrano: You can start with the story and intention and see which genres will help you make it happen.
Choi: That’s how it was in the comics we made. It certainly didn’t start as a particularly horror story. I don’t think the best horror movies just start with that. They become that in the process.
Serrano: Is there another horror itch that you can hurt now, because you’ve been killed or killed? What you’ve always wanted to do, or what you’re looking forward to doing in another horror book?
Choi: I love working in a variety of styles now. But I can say I’m not doing anything supernatural. That might be cool. The itching of being hurt or killed in a murder was unfolded, centered around catching the horrible things that live in our brains. It is about trying to replicate something that affects readers in a similar way.
Much of the things I drew from perspective, creating this eavesdropping view of Tiktok’s videos, POV videos and Life Video Day. People already know what it is, they are invested in it. The challenge then is to find ways to express connections with life, as seen through high-tech devices.
Man, I say I’m not a horror fan, but a good example of this is Hannibal, Ridley Scott. There’s a place where this guy falls off the roof, and it’s just a gore splash. Damage, see how tired it is. You soon begin to wonder if you should develop feelings for this man. Do blood and internal organs change the relationship with him? It’s an interesting place to get viewers in. I think we achieved similar things by being killed or killed. We wanted readers to look back at how we relate to people and what they mean to us when we view them exclusively through screens.
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