The classic John Carpenter film The Fog returns but to comics written by Steve Ekstrom, art by Marco Foderá, and published by Sumerian! Forty years after the events of The Fog, the comic series tells a supernatural horror story that reconnects several surviving characters and/or their descendants from Carpenter’s original story to a new series of paranormal events that plague Antonio Bay, a small fishing community turned ghost-hunting tourist destination.
Now, in 2022, something far more malevolent from Antonio Bay’s dark past is roiling up from the depths of the sea.
We got to talk to writer Steve Ekstrom about the return of this cult classic.
Graphic Policy: It’s been over 40 years since the original film. How did this series come about and how did you get involved?
Steve Ekstrom: Behemoth had been sold and one of the co-publishers, Nathan Yocum, had contacted me about some possible licensing work for the rebranding to Sumerian Comics. He and I had been talking about movies we liked and worthwhile licenses for adapting or developing for at least two years by then.
Nathan brought up that The Fog was available and I sort of gushed. John Carpenter is easily one of my biggest creative influences outside of comics. I was a kid growing up in the early 80’s who saw the first TV-adapted Halloween as well as The Fog…and I was terrified for life. (laughs) I had literally watched The Fog three nights earlier so I dropped everything I was working on and I pitched a rough one page concept about Andy Wayne (the little boy in the original film) grown up and secretly living with the trauma from the night Captain Blake and his crew sought revenge on Antonio Bay. I wanted to sort of blend this sort of easygoing naturalism you’d find at the heart of Carpenter’s movies with postmodern survivalist themes while keeping the core traditional ghost story of the original movie intact.
GP: What’d you know about The Fog before coming on board?
SE: I think I mentioned this earlier but I’ve been a fan of this movie since I was a little boy. I used to stay with my grandparents a lot and my grandma was one of those old ladies who couldn’t sleep so she naturally sat up watching “Late Late Movies” on local access television and me, being her oldest grandkid, I would get to sit up with her and we’d be terrified together. (laughs)
Ironically, I had never really experienced the movie as a writer and creator of comics until that night three days prior to my conversation with my boss. I had rewatched it with very fresh eyes that now had tools from my education and experiences as a storyteller so I was able to view it in a more technical manner.
It was fun and a little silly because it was a 40 year old horror movie but it really captures, again, Carpenter’s ability to appreciate the human condition and how we recoil when we’re afraid.
GP: Sequel, prequel, requel, reboot, there’s a lot of debate about them, especially in horror. Was it always intended to be a clear sequel and connected to the original?
SE: I pitched it as a follow-up. This series is grounded in the original story. I wanted to add to the mythos of the overall concept by honoring its existence and taking pieces of it that were left available and sort of turning them on their side so readers can digest concepts like supernatural curses and what may or may not happen to restless spirits once their thirst for revenge has been slaked.
The Fog was one of the first movies that I remember seeing where so many people walked away with their lives at the end. That kind of blows your mind after the last 40 years or so of horror movies and all of the body counts that seem to ratchet up as a franchise adds more films to a story.
I really liked the sort of timelessness of the Curse of Antonio Bay and how these guys rolled in during a centennial celebration of the town. But then I asked myself, “Does a ghost keep a scheduled calendar?What if something else, something more malevolent, caused them to stir instead?”
GP: The comic picks up around 40 years after the film by John Carpenter. There’s a lot that has changed technology wise that would impact the story. It seems like that’s something you’ve taken into account with the first issue? How has the world changing impacted this sequel?
SE: Modernity and the cellular phone ruined horror movies for about a decade and then, all of a sudden, people making movies and telling stories started to realize that we fuck up and drop our phones, we travel into areas with bad signal, we leave them places, we don’t charge them…whatever. I take a small moment to address that. There’s a little undercurrent in this story about our human need for technology, weapons, vehicles and how these tools can become a bigger weakness when they fail.
I want the story to feel logical and, again, I want naturalism to guide the story as the supernatural horror aspects of The Fog start to curl into the corners of the frames of the comic.
GP: The original film was about revenge and repressed historical events resurfacing. Carpenter’s films often have commentary about what’s going on. It feels like the original’s theme plays well with events from today. Is that something you thought of when writing it?
SE: I actually used local supernatural lore from around my hometown and outlying counties as the inspiration for a new character from Antonio Bay’s bloody legacy involving Captain Blake and the crew of the Elizabeth Dane.
The story was so compelling that I couldn’t resist. It’s embedded in the extra content in the first issue. Every issue has a two-page component that ties to the meatier parts of the story that needed context without going over the meager budget…and I say that lovingly because I got to tell this story with the remarkably talented Marco Foderá whose work was worth every penny he was paid. He’s such an absolute dynamo who deserves all the recognition and work opportunities at the Big 2. His future is going to be bright in American comics.
Graphic Policy: The comic is a sequel to the original film. As a writer, how do you balance writing for fans of the cult classic while also making it inviting to new readers who might not know it?
SE: It’s a lot easier than you think. I grew up watching soap operas with that same grandma I mentioned earlier so I have a firm grasp on the pacing of serialized entertainment. I think that the core of comics, especially when I was reading them as a kid, was that you could pick up a story and it was open enough that you were always able to enter it and it would guide you enough that you could understand where it was going based on where it came from. This project is no different. I think I’ve front-loaded enough character driven dialogue to reintroduce you to characters like Andrew and Stevie Wayne and, at the same time, introduce you to new characters like Annie Castle, Travis Mathew, and Jamie Machen-Wayne.
I think we buy horror comics because they’re fun and we want to be creeped out or tantalized or both. I think The Fog has a timeless quality and I hope people go watch the original film from 1980 and then pick this book up or vice versa.
There are a couple of scenes throughout the project where I basically reframe scenes from the original movie as new connective tissue for my own story’s framework. I hope that that sort of homage to the original film really drives home how much I care about the readers’ experiences. I want you all to love the original movie and this new story as much as I do by the end. I want you to want more after the fourth issue ends.
GP: The comic feels like it takes inspiration from ghost hunting shoes and true crime podcasts a bit. What influences, beside the original film, helped shape the story?
SE: Oh, I definitely drew from supernatural ghost hunting shows and podcasts. There’s a sort of facade of cocky curiosity with so many of those folks that I hope translates playfully with the new characters I introduce.
I also used some spooky lore from around the edges of my hometown, Valdosta, Georgia. I’m a very healthy skeptic so I also sort of tempered my skepticism with my imagination and what I could sort of envision as something truly horrific involving malevolent paranormal entities as well as spiritual ones.
GP: Horror has shifted a lot since the original was released. Any changes to how you approached this due to that?
SE: Absolutely. I’ve been consuming this sort of content for the last 40 years. One of the things I most admire about Carpenter’s movies like The Fog and Halloween is that these films have minimal gore. I should correct myself…as a 47 year old writer and creator of stuff, I’ve come to admire it more than say something Eli Roth has made in the last 10 to 15 years. There is a place for “torture porn” horror movies because they’re jarring and, in my opinion, even life-affirming, but suspense and existential dread have much more value when a viewer’s imagination fills in the blanks of what they’re experiencing. Our minds are VERY scary places, I hope that this story, which mostly (MOSTLY–haha) honors that sort of minimalist approach, takes your minds to a frightening place.
GP: Part of the original film’s hook is Carpenter’s music and the atmosphere. How do you approach that with a comic?
SE: First and foremost, I wrote 100% of this entire project while listening to Carpenter tracks and nothing else. There is an iconicism and sense of suspenseful urgency that is almost anxiety-inducing when you listen to the theme from The Fog. It’s almost as iconic when you hold it up to the Halloween theme which may be the most iconic score from a horror movie.
Because we can’t hear anything or have pages scored to a beat, I try to control pacing and tempo on pages by giving clearcut moments of rising and falling action that sort of slows down or speeds up the reading experience.
GP: Where can people connect with you online? Anything else you’d like to plug?
SE: I am currently building my own website at http://steveekstrom.rocks and it should be fully operational in the next week or so. You’ll be able to connect with me there, buy books I’ve worked on, check out interviews I’ve done, and you’ll be able to see where I’ll be appearing for signings and conventions in the future.
For now, I have about 50-ish openings on Facebook before I hit the cap and I am on Instagram, Threads and I’m trying to get some traction and followers on Bluesky Social.
I have been a lifelong collector of comics and I know that the chase variant market is an exciting place for a lot of readers and collectors. I will announce here that I will be selling TWO virgin cover chase variants, one standard version, one ultra-rare foil version of The Fog #1 with a new cover by artist, Drew Ragland. There are 150 Copies of the Standard Virgin Variant and 50 Chrome Virgin Variants. Those go on sale on Wednesday. Anyone can contact me through social media and buy them while supplies last.
