Talking With Doug Wagner And Daniel Hillyard About Their New Hitchcock-Inspired Horror Comedy ‘Narco’

Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard are back and once more unleashing their particular kind of dark, comedic horror in a new miniseries, Narco. And this time, they are pulling some of the book’s influence from Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. Never one to miss an opportunity to catch up with the pair, I wanted to know more about this new comic ahead of its release. Plus, I littered my questions with Hitchcock references, so read on, and find out more about this fascinating killer of a comic. And, why not try spotting all the Hitchcock film titles I smuggled into many a question posed to Wagner and Hillyard?

MacNamee: We meet again, guys. And yet again, I find myself talking to you about serial killers. I promise, I’m not a psycho. I just can’t help but be spellbound by your work, fellas. How’s it feel getting the band back together again, and on a more regular basis, it seems?

Doug Wagner: To be fair, Olly, we do keep showing up with serial killer books, so this one’s probably on us. At some point, it stops being a coincidence and starts being a lifestyle choice. And honestly, I can’t put into words how much I love working with Daniel … and I’m supposed to be a writer! I’d say “again,” but aside from the occasional bathroom break, we’ve basically been joined at the hip, working together nonstop since 2016.

Dan Hillyard: I mean, Doug’s not wrong, serial killers are pretty much our forte at this point. It’s basically my dream to be able to work with Doug, and if that can be something that goes on forever, then I will be very happy. We can be a forever band. You know the ones that seem to just keep on going, like AC/DC or Rolling Stones. 

Wagner: Oh, I’d love it if we were all old and shrivel-y and got to do con tours together. I think that’s my new golden age dream.  

MacNamee: This time round, you’re changing the focus from serial killers to a serial killer fanboy, Marcus. Why the shift in perspective on this new series?

 Wagner: You know us, Olly … we LOVE to keep things uncomfortable. We may play a lot in the serial killer sandbox, but we try our best to build a different castle every time. Plastic was gritty and erotic, Vinyl was our warped Disney horror, and Plush went full cannibalistic furry nightmare. With Narco, we wanted to flip the camera around. Instead of staring at the monster, we’re standing next to the guy who’s obsessed with them. That shift let us lean hard into a more Alfred Hitchcock–style psychological horror rather than the straight-up splatter we normally swim around in.

MacNamee: And it’s not the only change. You have made it clear in the announcement that this will be your love letter to Alfred Hitchcock. How will that be adapted to the script, Doug, and how will that be visualised, Daniel, beyond the homage covers? There are some pretty vertigo-inducing visuals in this first issue alone.

Wagner: For me, it meant pulling back on the body count and pushing more into anxiety. The horror here lives in Marcus’s head as much as it does on the page. We wanted it to feel more intimate, more unsettling. We wanted to focus on something that crawls under your skin instead of kicking the door down. The goal was to make it feel personal and relatable… right before it all goes completely sideways.

Hillyard: There were a lot of talks early on about visuals and how we wanted to approach Narco. With the lean into the Hitchcock thriller style, we wanted to try and capture that visual feel. The nighttime scenes are heavy in deep blacks, silhouettes and compositions that play with a lot of shadows. And the daytime scenes have a stark and almost clinical look.

MacNamee: Daft question, maybe, as I do have my suspicion, but why the Hitchcock inspiration? 

Wagner: Because the man knew how to mess with your brain, and I adore that about him. Simple as that. 

Hillyard: They did call him the Master of Suspense.

MacNamee: Like a lot of your past subjects, your main character in this series has a psychological disorder. Although it doesn’t lead him to kill. He suffers from narcolepsy. How did this very specific chronic neurological disorder become an integral part of the story? In fact, how did this story come about in the first place?

Wagner: This one’s entirely Keven Gardner’s fault (President of 12-Gauge Comics). He came to me with this irresistible idea about a character who literally passes out when things get too intense. Luckily, Keven trusted us enough to hand over the keys and let us drive straight into traffic. When we told him we wanted to push this toward psychological terror instead of our usual action-oriented blood and guts, he just shrugged and said, “Cool. I trust you guys.” That’s basically catnip for Daniel and me.

MacNamee: You don’t have to look any further than the preview pages to realize this is set in the same sick universe that Plastic, Plastic: Death and Dolls, Vinyl, Plush and I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer. But what other Easter Eggs will you be stuffing into this one? I find I’m always in a frenzy to seek them out.

Wagner: Well, you know we love to toss Easter Eggs in there, but we also never want to be heavy-handed with them. We pride ourselves on making each book in the Plastic-verse a standalone story. Beyond that? I plead the Fifth.

Hillyard: I also will avoid spoilers, but I will say that I like to sprinkle in the odd nod here and there. Sometimes it’s to our other books or just random stuff I’m obsessed with [laughs].

MacNamee: Once again, Daniel, your artwork seems to be subtly evolving. It’s certainly not for the birds. There’s a stylistic flow to the way clothes hang off folk that seems more elaborate and in step with Marcus’s narcolepsy, producing some amazing visuals/ What artistic inspirations fuel you?

Hillyard: I had been really inspired by the work of Tradd Moore as I was starting into Narco. Something about the almost liquid quality to his characters was a big influence, in particularly on how the passing-out sequences evolved. We really wanted to avoid a sudden black panel being the thing that signals Marcus losing consciousness. Instead, Doug and I talked about Marcus falling into it, like the world around him become ink or quicksand and he just disappears into the darkness of it. Once I had gotten into making those flowing lines for the environments, it just felt good for my hand to do (I know, a terrible description). From there, it started seeping into the characters’ clothes and hair.

MacNamee: I confess, I found the debut issue does a great, economical job of setting up the concept, establishing the cast, and having the space to create a very shocking cliffhanger. But I wonder what might come next? What Hitchcock film would you two recommend to get the best out of this series? Y’know, to get rid of any shadow of a doubt fans might have going into this series?

Wagner: LOL. Nice Hitchcock reference! I’d say queue up Rear Window, Psycho, and Vertigo. Between those three, you should get an idea for the kind of beautifully twisted nonsense we’re aiming for in Narco.

Narco #1 is out on Wednesday the with FOC this Monday 9th February.