Vault Comics’ ‘Something Crawled Out #1 Is Free To Retailers
by Olly MacNamee
Vault Comics is adding to its Free-to-Retailers Program with a new horror series, Something Crawled Out #1. Brought to you by writer Son M. and artist Cas ‘MadCursed’ Peirano will be out this July. This follows on the trail of previous Free-to-Retailers comics such as Christopher Yost and Val Rodrigues’ Unnatural Order #1, Zack Kaplan and Fabiana Mascolo’s Beyond Real #1, and Michael Moreci and Nathan Gooden’s Barbaric: Born in Blood #1. Collectively these three issues received over 350,000 orders totalling over $1,750,000 in retail value.
In a nutshell: The search for missing sister unearths an even bigger and more horrific mystery, and the odd chance your best friend’s the Devil.
In less of a nutshell, here’s the full synopsis:
“Edith “Eddie” Miller has no grand plans or great prospects for her life in the vague American Midwest. She spends her days sleeping in and her nights working shifts at a gas station. But when her younger sister fails to come home, Eddie unearths a web of missing girls and rotting bodies. The police prove useless, so Eddie teams up with her best friend, Rainer, in a desperate hunt to find her sister. The only thing is, Eddie believes her best friend might be the Devil himself.”
Son M. speaks more about the story below:
“Love is a violent thing. I’ve always been obsessed with the inherent connection between brutality and beauty, and the way we express our relationships in different ways. Something Crawled Out is about two desperate people trying to save someone they love, and thus committing unspeakable acts of violence onto others along the way. I’ve always wanted to write horror that was so tied to expressions of the Final Girl trope, mixed with the active presence of the Hunter. Rather than reacting to the tragedies around her, Eddie is constantly causing devastation in her desperation to find her sister.”
MadCursed added:
“Reading the Something Crawled Outscripts, I was immediately drawn to the devilish aura surrounding the characters. I really enjoy stories where the arc isn’t always self-improvement, but rather, self-destruction. There’s a violence in a lot of these characters in Something Crawled Out and a lot of the circumstances they face bring it out in terrible ways. And yet, despite all the horrors happening, you still find yourself rooting for them. You want them to win.”
Son M continues:
“Working with MadCursed is a dream! There’s a ton of really nuanced expressions of love vulnerability in this story, and MadCursed expresses these dynamics beautifully. Plus, they really know how to nail having both incredibly hot characters (wink wink nudge nudge), comedic moments, and extreme, unforgivable acts of gory violence. What more could I ask for?”
MadCursed concludes:
“I’ve always wanted to draw comics, ever since I was a kid, and now here I am, doing it! Something Crawled Out is just the beginning. There’s going to be more from us in the future, we’ve got a long way to go. And that’s a promise.”
Something Crawled Out #1 is out on Wednesday July 31st, 2024 from Vault Comics with variant covers from artists including Chris Shehan, Nathan Gooden, Cathy Kwan, Rennerei, Priscilla Bampoh, and more.
