Joe Hill is leaving comics and his DC Comics horror imprint (but hopes to return someday)
DC's horror pop-up has popped off as Hill returns to novels for the time being
It’s been awhile since fans have seen anything from DC’s horror imprint Hill House Comics — the line created and curated by horror writer Joe Hill, which released titles including Basketful of Heads, Daphne Byrne, and Plunge — and, it turns out, there’s a good reason for that: Hill has put the imprint… and his entire comics career… on an indefinite hiatus to focus on his day job: writing best-selling novels.
“I’m actually out of comics for the next few years,” Hill revealed during an interview with TThe Short Box podcast. “I’ve written four novels, and I’d like to have at least 10 novels before I’m done being a novelist. I’d like to write another six novels. So right now, that’s my complete focus, getting the next novels written.”
That means that Hill House Comics is, for the time being, is no more. The imprint debuted in 2019 featuring not just Hill, but horror novelists Carmen Maria Machado and Laura Marks, as well as comics-writer-turned-novelist Mike (M.R.) Carey, as well as artists including Kelley Jones, Dani, and Stuart Immonen. The last title to be released by the imprint was the sixth and final issue of Refrigerator Full of Heads, published in April 2022.
Hill is already thinking about his return to the medium, however. “I’d like to stack up the next two or three novels before I return to comics,” he said. “There’s some possible exceptions — Chris Ryall has been adapting the novellas from my book Strange Weather for Image, and I would love to do script one of those adaptations myself. It would be an adaptation of a novella called Loaded, it’s actually set in Florida.”
And that’s not all — Hill also teased the return of his Locke & Key series with Gabriel Rodriguez, as well… although that, too, is some years away from happening. Perhaps one day, Hill House will make a comeback of its own, too. After all, if there’s one thing horror stories specialize in, it’s things coming back from the dead.
A more recent horror comic from DC had its own big name writer, as Bruce Campbell took on Sgt. Rock last year.
