With Vault’s release of Fearscape in 2018, creators Ryan O’Sullivan and Andrea Mutti had a real hit on their hands. Now, Vault has recently announced that the original creative team is set to explore that world even further with a follow-up series titled A Dark Interlude.
The self aware character named Henry from Fearscape released a statement to shed some light on the new series and point out that it absolutely is NOT a sequel.
Dear reader, kindly ignore my publisher and whichever clickbait, data-selling, privacy-ignoring “entertainment news” website they have elected to run this advertisement on; A Dark Interlude is not a sequel to Fearscape. I would never dream of contributing to society’s paunched glut of never-ending stories. Originality died the day the child-reader cried “more”, and the parent-author obeyed.
While it may be true that A Dark Interlude begins where Fearscape ends, that all of the characters from Fearscape reappear, that the Fearscape itself also reappears (still as a metaphysical realm beyond our own, where that which we fear most takes physical form); to take these coincidental continuances as indicative of the work-as-sequel is to misunderstand the primary function of all literature. I speak, as well you know, of the anxiety of influence.
Our inspiration comes not from the gods, but from our fellow man. How often do we imagine a story of our own creation, seemingly from the ether, only to discover it already exists in a book penned by another? (Perhaps a book we own! Perhaps, even, one we’ve previously read!) Humanity is a coral reef, largely sharing the same thoughts. So to the franchise-fetishists I ask — is all literature a sequel to Dante? To Tolstoy? To Shakespeare?
Of course not. The sheer concept is lunacy. And yet, the thought is appealing. The entirety of human literature as one long, single, narrative. I wonder, how would such a story end? (And who would dare try to write it?)
The first issue of A Dark Interlude with covers from Ariela Kristantina, Nathan Gooden and Tim Daniel is set to release in November, 2020.
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