Wow. Wow, fam. Four words: FANGORIA horror comic anthology. While we’ve been hustling away on the editorial and design of First In Fright: The FANGORIA Compendium (sooo much to show you there soon!), the backers of our Kickstarter campaign have brought us to the brink of our most pie-in-the-sky stretch goal: a FANGORIA horror comic anthology issue, featuring five tales of terror by five giants in the industry. Here’s the rub: if you want it, you can ONLY get this Kickstarter-exclusive issue by pre-ordering a copy of First In Fright before the campaign closes.
And believe me: you do want it! We’re beyond proud to partner with the best in the horror comics biz, Panick Entertainment, on the creation of this issue. And no one could make more sense as the first artist onboard a FANGORIA anthology comic than Tony Fleecs, of Stray Dogs and Feral! I mean, one look at this brilliant Feral Fango riff, and Tony was a no-brainer.
If you’re new to Tony’s work, we did a little Q&A with him to introduce him to our readership:
Did you read Fango growing up?
Oh my god, no. I was barely allowed to read comic books. FANGORIA was like the forbidden fruit on the top shelf at the convenience store next to Heavy Metal and Hustler. I'm a subscriber now. But my parents would've had me locked up in a church basement if they found a Fango under my childhood bed.
What horror filmmaker or film most heavily inspires your work?
The obvious answer is George Romero. Feral is basically just The Crazies with cats. We've got the hazmat-suited stormtroopers and everything. But I think a lot about Argento when I'm planning scenes. And when we're coloring the books.
If you could only work in one horror subgenre for the rest of your career, what would it be?
We're having a pretty good time in zombies right now. I feel like we could hang out here for a long time without getting bored. But if we're talking forever… forever ever? Murder mystery/giallo? I feel like that's broad enough that I wouldn't get bored. I don't know if there's any single subgenre that I wouldn't get ever bored in. I like to jump around.
If your work had a soundtrack, what musicians would be on it?
It would be John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi and Riz Ortolani, and you know who I really love currently is Robin Carolan, who did the new Nosferatu.
What’s your favorite FANGORIA cover?
The Fulci Zombie one is my favorite (Volume 1, Issue #8) but the one that I've got hanging up in my office is Volume 2, Issue #26. That's the one that has Feral on the cover.
We’ll be announcing Tony’s co-conspirators in the coming weeks, and they’re all just as major. We’re calling this exclusive Issue 0, wink wink, so if you’re a completionist, you’re going to want to secure yourself a copy ASAP, and you can ONLY do that by pre-ordering a copy of First In Fright: The FANGORIA Compendium. Backers at the physical tier will get a physical copy of the horror comic; backers at the digital tier will get a digital copy. But all backers are getting it, one way or another! So join the 10,000+ people who are supporting our efforts to secure FANGORIA's legacy forever. Pre-order your copy of First In Fright: The FANGORIA Compendium HERE.
Stay tuned for many more updates – the Compendium is in the layout phase right now, and we have so much more exciting stuff to share with backers very, very soon.
