Interview – The Misty Special 2020 – It’s Christmaaaaaassss… Talking Home For Christmas With Lizzie Boyle.
12th December 2020
Time to send a special winter-time chill down your spine, dear readers, as we present to you the new Misty Winter Special, which is out now!
Inside, there’s two tales to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up – one of which finds creators Anna Savory (Tales from the Satanic Library) & V.V. Glass (Doctor Who), tell a tale of ‘Infection‘, about how far people are expected to conform to societal standards no matter how warped the rules become! But here, we’re catching up with the writer of the second tale, Lizzie Boyle. Along with artist David Roach, she’s spinning us a seasonal treat with Home for Christmas, where a ghostly home-invasion reveals dreaded sins of the past!
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Misty was published weekly from 1978 to 1980, aimed at young girls and aiming to give them a more off-beat, more chilling, more frightening and supernatural read. Mind you, in those old days of ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ comics, if there was one comic your brother would steal from you – it was definitely Misty! Inside, the tales were full of ghostly goings-on, but it was the more subtle, psychological chillers that really marked Misty out as something special, the sort of strips that would haunt your thoughts, your nightmares eve, for days after.
And it’s this sense of having that spectacular spookiness, that sense of thrilling scares that has carried on through the new stories in the Misty & Scream Specials we’ve published, and continues here in this new Misty Winter Special.
Now, time to chat to Lizzie Boyle about the fun to be had with a great Christmas chiller as we go ‘Home For Christmas’.
Lizzie, hello – first things first, can you tell us a little of what to expect with the strip – obviously it’s a Christmas tale, but I’m guessing it’s not something that’s going to get adapted for a Hallmark channel Christmas movie anytime soon?
Lizzie Boyle: It’s a gentle tale of family life at the most wonderful time of the year… OK, you’re right, it’s low on the schmaltz and high on the shivers. And perhaps a cautionary tale about opening your presents early.
I’m thinking it’s something that’s going to be right there in the tone of Misty of old, giving readers old and young a good chill down the spine?
LB: Absolutely. We wanted to capture the spirit of Misty, which harks back to writers like M.R. James – weird happenings in remote country houses – but also something more up-to-date for today’s readers, with just the right amount of creeping terror thrown in.
How did ‘Home For Christmas’ come about?
LB: Keith Richardson, editor extraordinaire, asked for story ideas. He’s great – he always has a tone in mind that he’d like to achieve and an understanding of the balance of stories across all the Rebellion titles, both new and reprints. So you don’t waste time pitching ideas that are likely to replicate something that’s being printed somewhere else, you can just focus on creating a unique idea that will fit within the overall book. It’s also great that Keith trusts me to write across multiple genres: I’ve been the writer on the Gums stories in the recent Cor! Buster anthologies, so it’s great to stretch your wings away from comedy sharks and into something a little more disturbing.
When it comes to comics like Misty, would you agree that there’s something inherently scarier in the psychological horrors these strips for younger readers portrayed than there ever were in the out and out horror comics for grown-ups?
LB: Absolutely! I had the honour of editing the Tammy & Jinty Special for Rebellion a couple of years ago and that gave me the chance to dig into the archives of the various titles that Rebellion now own. There’s a real thread of characters being haunted, controlled or otherwise psychologically manipulated either by evil, scheming adults or by everyday items like mirrors, jewellery, hairbrushes or even sunglasses. A lot of the stories are about how far you can be pushed mentally one you have placed yourself in a situation and how much destruction you’re willing to do to friends and family along the way. To me, that’s way more chilling than a splash page of guts and gore.
And I think it’s safe to say that, given the right horror, kids really do enjoy giving themselves a good scare, in whatever medium they get it. What is it, do you think, that appeals to younger readers with horror comics?
LB: There’s something about the taboo nature of horror: it feels like you’re always too young to be allowed to see the scariest movies or play the gory videogames. Anything that gives you access to something frightening becomes instantly appealing! Comics have often flown under the radar when it comes to age restrictions. The lazy assumption that “comics are for kids” has actually been a way in which younger readers have got hold of stories designed for older audiences. Horror also deals with things that are different and hard to understand; it celebrates weirdness. And we all feel weird as we transform from childhood to adulthood. We all start to grapple with this world that is bigger and stranger and more frightening than we thought. Some of those feelings get reflected back to you when you read horror. And then there’s the literal physical thrill of a jump-scare…
When dealing with writing ‘Home From Christmas’, bearing in mind that you’re writing for that younger reader, how do you go about getting the balancing act of making them just scared enough just right?
LB: With titles like this, you have to find a balance. You want to capture the spirit of the original comics, designed for pre-teen and teen readers, particularly girls, by writing something relatable. Equally, you know that today’s readership will be made up of a mix of new young readers and older readers who perhaps remember the title from before or just want a good scare. Those older readers may well have a long history of reading horror so there’s definitely a challenge to come up with something fresh and different that doesn’t just rely on horror movie tropes.
Do you think there’s a real market for the sort of ‘girls’ comics we used to see, or do you think things are now more geared to the graphic novel market for teen and younger readers?
LB: We have to think about our terms here. Girls are a huge audience for comics – look at the success of Raina Telgemeier or Noelle Stevenson in bringing forward titles that have been hugely popular among girls and young women. Teenage girls in the UK are also avid consumers of Manga. So there’s absolutely a market for comics that girls want to read. I’m wary though about saying that those are “girls’ comics”. That implies that there’s such a thing as “boys’ comics” which gets you to perpetuating gender stereotypes and which excludes anyone who doesn’t identify as a boy or a girl.
Oh, absolutely, I agree with you there. The concept of girls and boys comics is something for the past. And it’s something that’s happened already – in an earlier life, I had the pleasure of setting up a primary school library, complete with at least 1,000 graphic novels, and it was so good to see that Raina’s books were by far the most borrowed item for the entire school, across all years. It’s pleasing to see that, with today’s younger readers, comics simply are comics, they enjoy what they enjoy and that’s a very important, very good thing – both for them and for comics!
Finally, thinking about Christmas and the end of the year, what do you think it is about this time of year that lends itself to ghost stories and horror?
LB: Long, dark evenings. Everyone locked away at home with their families. Bad dreams caused by too many pigs-in-blankets. There are also long traditions associated with this time of year: the half-goat, half-demon Krampus, for example, who comes along with Saint Nicholas in many Central European countries. Where Santa brings presents to good children, Krampus brings punishment to those who are bad.
And with that image in our heads, of Krampus punishing the bad folks (and yes, we have some of those in mind for sure, it’s time to thank Lizzie for giving us that look into Home For Christmas – you can find it in The Misty Winter Special, out on 2 December wherever comics are sold and from the 2000 AD web shop. And for more from those involved in the Misty Winter Special, check out the latest Thrill Cast!
