Talking ‘The Scream! Halloween Special 2026’ With Zoe Tunnell And Chloe Brailsford

What’s worse than a 9 to 5? What about a job that technically occurs while you’re asleep? The Severance vibes are strong in writer Zoe Tunnell and artist Chloe Brailsford‘s story “Consent Is Key” for the Scream! Halloween Special 2026. With colors by JP Jordan and letters by Jodie Troutman, here’s what Tunnell and Brailsford could reveal about the horrors ahead for Scream! fans: 

Rachel Bellwoar: As this story demonstrates, consent is a much more complicated issue than is often acknowledged. What first interested you in telling a story about consent, or was the starting point capitalism and it became about consent?

Zoe Tunnell: Consent first, capitalism second. Well, if I’m being honest the deepest seed of it came from seeing the endless wave of weight loss shots and drugs being marketed everywhere, all the time, and the slightly uncanny valley dehumanization that they all carry. From there, the idea of being forced along a somewhat similar Forced Beautification path and the horrific lack of consent seemed like a natural threat to tug on.

Bellwoar: From the jump Kayla’s new job raises some red flags. It’s more a question of how rather than if it will go bad. Did you consider multiple options, as to how LivNext Health’s corruption would reveal itself?

Tunnell: This was the first real choice! 10 pages is a tight space to work in, and I quickly realized that we wouldn’t have room for a slow burn reveal of the horror, instead focusing on the desperation of needing a job and the stark terror of how bad it gets for Kayla.

Bellwoar: We never actually see what happens during one of Kayla’s night shifts – just the aftermath the next morning. Was that interesting to play with, where what’s missing becomes as important as what’s shown?

Tunnell: It was vital! For me, it’s always more horrifying to leave those little gaps in the story, in perspective, so that there’s spaces for your mind to fill in on its own. The ideas you can spin up about what happens during The Night Shift, especially with the aftermath we see, are always going to be creepier and more tailored to a reader’s particular nightmares than me trying to show specific examples.

Bellwoar: Kayla goes through both a physical and mental transformation over the course of this story. What was that like to plan out and was it difficult having to take into account all of the time jumps?

Chloe Brailsford: The story is pretty linear, and the way Zoe constructed it basically broke every change down to a specific moment; it was really all about adding those moments together for her bimbofied transformation so that, while you can sense what’s coming, seeing it all on that big page turn — seeing the sadness in her eyes as she compares her current face to that which once was — is utterly heart-breaking

Tunnell: It was a challenge, but a satisfying one. I initially pitched this to both my editor Chiara [Mestieri] — sorry, “Ghastly McNasty” — and Chloe as a “horror bimbofication” tale, and the sort of gradual shift you see is a core component of that particular playground. The trickiest part was trying to make sure Kayla always felt like Kayla. Even after everything she goes through, she’s never reshaped or traumatized to such a degree that she loses her core sense of self, deep down.

Bellwoar: Often Kayla is standing in front of a mirror so she can find out about the latest change to her appearance in real time. Mirrors can be unforgiving on a good day but was it challenging trying to imagine what those first reactions would be?

Brailsford: For me, it was all about the face — what is the face emoting? IS the face emoting? Zoe had described her transformation as this ridiculously Botox-infused young woman, which meant that forehead lines? They’re OUT! Raised eyebrows? NO WAY, PAL! All the normal signifiers I might draw to convey emotion in that transformation were off the table except for one: tears.

The tears through the frozen face — a look of stunned shock as she examines the photo of her prior face before her; I also tried to make sure that the drawing of her previous face (as portrayed in the photo) read as intensely human so as to really ramp up the contrast.

Then our wonderful colorist, JP Jordan, came in and threw that gaudy makeup all over her face and VOILA! There you have it! A look of sheer horror through nothing but frozen tears, all telling you exactly how the moment is hitting her.

Troutman: I trusted Chloe to sell the body language and horror. She’s one of the greats at drawing the most beautiful women you’ve ever seen, and adores body horror so I knew as long as I gave the basic gist of what each step along Kayla’s journey was going for, she would absolutely crush it.

Bellwoar: Kayla spends a lot of the story very isolated as well. Did that impact how you approached the dialogue and layouts?

Tunnell: It was very intentional, and something I felt lucky to be able to do thanks to the creative team. Chloe is a damn rockstar and I was honored she said yes, while JP and Jodie are two of the best in the business at what they do (as well as friends and previous collaborators on our indie book Sink Your Teeth In) so I never doubted that everyone could do what needed to be done with telling such an isolated, singular-perspective tale.

Brailsford: I wish I were a more thoughtful artist so I could say, “Oh yes, absolutely” lmao. Instead, while I DO think about blocking within a scene, I think a lot more about pacing and just making sure that the beats are hit in a really effective way. To me, building and relieving tension is the most important thing in comics, and so basically every decision I make just goes toward that. 

The script kept Kayla pretty isolated for most of the comic anyway, and so it wasn’t hard to show her as relatively lonely; in essence, no, I didn’t think too much about *framing* her as isolated so much as just doing my best to hit the beats that the script called for.

Bellwoar: Then there’s the guy who comes to represent LivNext Health in this story. What’s it like creating the face and voice of a company?

Tunnell: If I remember right, I described him as looking like “[MODERN POLITICIAN REDACTED] with even more work done, a fake tan, and the most untrustworthy smile you’ve ever seen.”

Brailsford: This guy — this executive — he’s a total slimeball. I figured that he has perfected a grin at all times in business relations, unless the scenario calls for a tweak (such as his expression on the phone showing “empathy”). When things start actually impeding his business, the grinning mask disappears to show his actual disdain. It’s like the phrase “lying through your teeth.” 

I also have been in the company of a fair few business people — the salesman type — who are effectively ALWAYS trying to sell you on something, and who know how to emote appropriately at every single turn. It’s kind of frightening, really — you never know when you’re being had! Their dollar is more important to them than anything their service could possibly supply you. So yeah, basically tried to bring all of that into this asshole character, lmao!

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Zoe and Chloe!

The Scream! Halloween Special 2026 goes on sale October 28th from Treasury of British Comics,