Getting The Evil Eye In America: Rich Tommaso On The Horror Of Collier County’s 20th Anniversary

It’s been 20 years (what, really??) since Rich Tommaso’s comic series, The Horror of Collier County, was first published in 5 issues by Dark Horse, building on his indie brand. In keeping with revisiting his major works with such comics as Clover Honey and Dry County in recent years for touch-ups to the art and shiny, new editions, Tommaso’s Collier County will be released as a special anniversary hardback edition on May 8th, complete with two related short stories, “King Blood” and “Don’t Look Back”.

The book follows Fran and her young daughter Lucy as they leave the big city to go stay with Fran’s mother in Florida for awhile. There are hints at past traumas to be left behind, and echoes of displacement of life and identity for both wanderers. But the location they visit, and consider staying in, is potentially far darker, weirder, and more threatening than they can imagine. Is is all in Fran’s head? Or are monstrous inhabitants really out to get her? You’ll have to read the book to find out, but the tension building from Tommaso is masterful, and the little nods to the details of real life will make Collier County that much more convincing to readers.

We’re delighted to have Rich Tommaso on site today to talk about The Horror of Collier County 20 years on, and what we’ll find in this new edition.

Hannah Means-Shannon: What’s the original context of coming up with issues 1-5 of Horror of Collier County? What prompted the project and how did the issues first appear?

Rich Tommaso: In 1995 I had moved into my parent’s house in Naples, Florida to save money, while working cheaply for a small indie comics publisher. I don’t think I looked very “punk rock” at that time, but I was still in my early twenties and continued to dress in mostly black or dark clothing. These two factors would get anyone in Naples lots of hard looks and long stares from the mostly elderly and Christian population (I forget just how many churches there are in Naples, but it’s a HUGE number given the size of the place). I remember thinking, “living down here is like Rosemary’s Baby, but being evil-eyed by Christians instead of Satanists”. So, that idea remained in my mind for a few years until I made a series pitch for The Horror Of Collier County to Dark Horse in 1998. It was supposed to be a graphic novel at first, but the norm at DH was to first publish things as a series and collect them in a book later, which is still the practice at most of the big publishers today.

HMS: Does this new edition contain any tweaks or updates to your original work, the way you did with Dry County and Clover Honey? What’s the significance for readers of you including “King Blood” and “Don’t Look Back” with the series?

RT: I hadn’t read the book for many years, so when I sat down to review it for possible editing purposes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it only needed some pruning from the book’s opening chapters. The story seemed pretty consistent in its creepy, angsty mood from issue one’s ending, onward. But at the start of issue one, there seemed to be a lot of ridiculous, goofy, and unnecessary throw-away scenes that didn’t fit the rest of the story’s darker tone. All in all, I think I only edited out maybe ten pages. The very first seven or eight were chopped up and reassembled into three pages of content.

As far as including the other two sequels, King Blood works as a very good origin story for all of the main characters in HOCC–especially for Vlad (or Alex), who doesn’t appear in HOCC, but does have a major role in Don’t Look Back!–which, was the first sequel, but is placed after King Blood in this volume’s chronology. Initially, I produced King Blood so that people didn’t have to read Cannibal Porn–my very first published series, released by EROS Comix in 1993. Not a series I’d want to re-release, not so much for it’s sexual content, but more for the fact that I can’t stand the art in it.

Don’t Look Back! works very well as a wrap-up to everything in the volume–it has a solid ending–and again–King Blood is meant to be an origin, so it doesn’t really have an ending per se, more of a … to it. KB was also edited to function better as an origin story. I edited out two pages from the very start and the five pages from the end of the book, which ties everything back in to HOCC and DLB.

It was sad to lose those last five pages–where Fran and Vlad are involved in a demonic divorce court proceeding–but there were two problems within those pages, one being that it leaves Vlad in a time and place that comes after the Don’t Look Back! timeline–if that makes sense. The second is that it draws a very clear line as to what really happened to Fran when she believed she was being stalked by her neighbors down in Collier County. And I’m not sure that I want to draw such a clear line on that point just now.

HMS: What’s it like seeing the whole “Horror” story as a graphic novel with chapters, now? Does it change how you view it as a narrative, or emphasize different themes this way?

RT: The comic always worked better as one piece. The covers (interior and exterior) were drawn as a continuous part of the whole story, with no breaks at all, so to see it in graphic novel form was always the goal from the start. Although, as a series it was also successful in that, those back covers always had a bit of a cliffhanger to them. Ultimately, to read it altogether–uninterrupted–is best, I think.

HMS: Man, you really like drawing alligators. I think I’ve asked you this before, but have you been to a gator farm?

RT: No, but I do love drawing alligators, lizards, turtles, frogs. I drew reptiles and amphibians quite a lot when I was a kid. And they eventually made their way into my comic books, which I began drawing full stories of at around age 11-12.

HMS: There’s an increasing tone of paranoia in “Horror” but the biggest tension is that we can’t be sure whether it IS paranoia, or whether Fran’s unease is based on reality. What made you want to create a story about that ambiguity?

RT: The fact that I myself felt so paranoid about everyone looking at me funny, judging me with their eyes when I lived in Florida had something to do with the paranoia and haziness of what was actually happening in the comic book story. Because just a few years later, this would be me going from age 22 to 28–I felt silly about making such a big deal about people’s suspicious looks in my direction. It was no longer important, I saw it as overdramatic and childish by the time I was 28 years old. But, I kept things on a serious level nonetheless–there’s not much comedy in the book, a little, but it’s definitely more dramatic on the whole–because I still wanted to keep that Rosemary’s Baby dramatism intact.

HMS: There are Twilight Zone episodes playing, ideas of surveillance, and certainly the idea that in Collier County, being different is enough of a reason to fear for your safety. To what extent is this typical of America in your mind, or simply of being human?

RT: There are certain parts of the country where I still feel people’s eyes judging me, even at the age of 48. I can’t figure it out, and I feel silly again even admitting this today–but certainly in Florida and in my current home of Georgia–especially if I travel outside the Atlanta perimeter–I occasionally feel those hard looks, particularly from white people. Maybe it’s my own paranoia, maybe I’m being too sensitive, or I’M just making snap assumptions, but I still feel I get them from folks. Yet, I’m not sure what it is about my appearance these days that might be rubbing people the wrong way. Maybe it’s my bushy beard and olive skin? People in Georgia often ask me if I’m from the Middle East–which doesn’t bother me at all–I just wonder WHY they’re asking me that question. Who knows? Again, maybe I’M the one being judgmental.

HMS: When drawing hallucinations or dream sequences, I noticed you use a few strategies to show unreality. What kind of choices do you usually make as a cartoonist to blur the line between mental states and objective reality?

RT: I used to draw things completely out-of-whack, blurry lines, wavy panel borders, etc. But, my most effective approach to them now is to do nothing different at all. This is because most dreams are depictions of my very own. And the reason for placing them in my stories these days is to illustrate just how real to life they actually feel. I think I first noticed this in The Sopranos. The dreams are shot precisely in the same way that their everyday reality is shot. It’s very  effective and accurate to me.

HMS: Let’s talk about the bigger context of Fran in “King Blood” and “Don’t Look Back”. There you’re really taking the supernatural and occult elements off the leash and Fran is the different outsider there too, as well as Lucy in a way. Were those more fun to draw for you? It seems like there’s a rich world to explore there in Fran and Lucy’s problematic relationship to a world of monsters.

RT: Yes, now I’m showing Fran and Vlad as the vampires they are, shape-shifting and all–and getting away from the subtle, slice-of-life stuff–I’m going to stop being so subtle and begin moving towards more classic vampire comic-book-fun. No more the poor victim of Vlad’s evil scheming, I can show that Fran contains the same supernatural powers that he does and that she can use those powers to fight back. I’m currently working on new stories in this world and delving deeper into the whole vampire lore–as well as turning old cliches on their head.

The new comics will include all of the characters from these three previous books, as well as some new characters added into the mix. The divorce trial will be revisited and Lucy, now a teenager, will have a much bigger role in the stories and we’ll see more of her own life and personal relationships as well. These strips will most likely all find their way into my patreon-based magazine, Black Phoenix. So, any fans of Collier County, look out for more to come!

Thanks to Rich Tommaso, the comics master himself, for joining us today!

The Horror of Collier County HC arrives in comic shops on May 8th!