Last year, Image Comics launched a great new series called Witch Doctor, which we adored here at IGN Comics. Now, Witch Doctor scribe Brandon Seifert is prepping the second volume of the series alongside tackling the comic book adventures of some iconic genre franchises: Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Doctor Who. We caught up with him to see what he's unleashing on us this fall.
IGN Comics: First, congrats on all the new work. We’ll talk about this again closer to release, but what’s the status of the next volume of Witch Doctor?
Brandon Seifert: Witch Doctor: Mal Practice #1 (of 6) goes on sale November 28! I’m excited to finally be back — it’s been a little while since we did Vol. 1, but we wanted to make sure to “come correct” on this. So the whole mini-series is already written, and issues #1-3 were all drawn before we even announced the release date!
IGN: That's great to hear. Now, how did the Hellraiser and Doctor Who gigs come about?
Seifert: If we’re going to be perfectly honest, they came about because of Allison Baker — the co-publisher of MonkeyBrain Comics, and wife of writer Chris Roberson. Allison and Chris have always been super supportive of me and my work. Chris has written for both BOOM! and IDW, and Allison put in a good word for me at both of those companies. In the case of BOOM!, it led to them offering me a writing gig on the Hellraiser Annual that came out in April. In IDW’s case, I got in touch with them about something unrelated — and found out that Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall had read Witch Doctor and thought my handling of that eccentric doctor character and his weird sci-fi adventures would translate well into me doing something on Doctor Who. And it so happened that I’d already pitched some ideas to Who editor Denton Tipton a few months before, because Doctor Who is one of my favorite things ever!
So — Allison, thanks again!
Seifert: I feel like the Hellraiser comics are very different from the movies. The movies are very self-contained, like horror movies tend to be — they have to be, if they’re going to give you any real sense of peril for the characters. When you’ve got a horror franchise that’s based on a hero rather than a villain, like Scream or something, that’s different because you’ve got a protagonist who you can reasonably expect is going to survive the movie — because they’re survived the past ones. The Hellraiser films aren’t like that.
But the comic series is about both the villain — Pinhead — and about the heroine — Kirsty Cotton. Kirsty’s been the heroine throughout the comic series — which kind of makes it less of a straight-up horror story, and more of a multi-genre piece. The Hellraiser comics have horror, but they’ve also got action and drama — same as Witch Doctor. So when I sit down and write a Hellraiser comic set in this universe, I’d argue it’s honestly more like Witch Doctor than like a Hellraiser film — although without the sci-fi element, and with way less humor.
As a writer, I like exploring the ramifications of things. In Witch Doctor, that shows up as we examine classic monsters you feel like you know, but then reveal there’s lots more going on with them than you expect, and it’s all tied into the darkest corners of real-world biology. In Hellraiser: The Road Below, I’m doing the same kind of exploration, but it’s with Kirsty Cotton, the choices she’s made and the power she now has.
IGN: What’s the general plot of Hellraiser: The Road Below?
Seifert: In the last couple years of the Hellraiser ongoing comic, Kirsty Cotton has gone from being the “final girl” of the first two movies, to being a Cenobite-hunter — and now, to being a Cenobite herself! Pinhead stepped down — and convinced her to become his replacement, so she could “change the system from the inside.” But when Kirsty became the new Pinhead, she realized that if Hell is evil, it’s a necessary evil.
Hellraiser: The Road Below is a sort of “year one” story, picking up really early in Kirsty’s time as the new Pinhead. This is Kirsty still really committed to carrying out Hell’s work, catching the people who deserve to be punished and bringing them back to Hell. She’s really convinced she’s doing something good for the universe... but there’s ramifications for her actions she’s not expecting. And when she’s summoned by a frightened mother who wanted to make a deal with a devil to save her child from a blood feud that’s almost wiped out their family, Kirsty’s going to learn just how true that whole thing about Hell and good intentions is!
IGN: While I’m not one of them, Hellraiser has a very passionate fanbase. How do you balance bringing your own vision to the story while staying true to what the fans want/expect from a Hellraiser story?
Seifert: That’s honestly hard, because I can’t really guess what Hellraiser fans “want,” and it’s easy to second-guess myself if I start doing that. At the end of the day, with Hellraiser or anything else, the only thing I can do is make sure I’m telling a story that I want to tell, and a story that I, as a reader and fan, want to read. And I’m doing stuff in The Road Below that I’ve wanted to read since I first got into Clive Barker back in high school — so I think that part is going well!
IGN: How involved is Clive Barker in the ongoing work of the Hellraiser comics?
Seifert: Hellraiser is definitely still Clive’s baby, and even in Hellraiser books like The Road Below that he’s not actually co-writing, he’s still there behind the scenes reading and vetting everything, and bringing things back onto the track he wants them on if they wander off it. And the ongoing Hellraiser title — that’s Clive. He’s co-writing it, and the other people he brings on are there to help implement his vision for the world and the characters.
IGN: Which Hellraiser movie is your favorite and why?
Seifert: I think the first one is still pretty unmatched — but I’ve got a lot of affinity for Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. This is the one where you got to see Hell, where you got to see people turned into Cenobites and where you got to see the Cenobites’ god, Leviathan. That’s my jam, right there. One of my favorite things about Clive’s work, the thing I found more inspiring when I got super-into his writing when I was in high school and my brain was all squishy and influence-able, was his worldbuilding and the scope of his vision.
The original Hellraiser is great, and it’s definitely the scariest movie in the series — but it doesn’t have the scope or the depth of Hellbound. Hellbound actually gets into the world of the Cenobites, who they are, where they come from and what they do — and that’s the sort of thing that interests me, as a fan and a writer.
Head over to Page 2 for some Doctor Who and Witch Doctor goodness!
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