DC's new horror imprint, Joe Hill's Hill House Comics expands this week with the debut of The Low, Low Woods, a miniseries by writer Carmen Maria Machado and artist Dani. Set in the heart of coal country in western Pennsylvania in the 1990s, the story centers on two teenage girls who learn that something unearthed by the mines and poisoning the earth around their small town comes with monstrous consequences.

In an interview with CBR, Machado and Dani shared their inspirations for the series, its themes, and why coming-of-age stories are naturally terrifying.

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CBR: Carmen, being from Pennsylvania and the time period of the book, is this one of the most personal stories you've written yet?

Carmen Maria Machado: Well, no, I had a memoir come out earlier this year (laughs). I'm actually slightly younger than the characters. They're in their teens and coming-of-age in the '90s and I wasn't a teen until the early 2000s. So it's a little bit before my time, but I sort of liked setting it in a pre-cellphone [era]; I don't know, I feel like the outfits were real good back then and the hair and everything. And I'm also from East Pennsylvania, and the place that I'm from is not really coal country. But I spent a lot of time and was really interested in Central Pennsylvania and these sort of evocative landscapes, which is very special to me, so it seemed like a really good setting for the story.

Here, you've got all kinds of small town intrigue with hints of Ray Bradbury and things like that. What is it about those kinds of places and a small coal town that you found really rich to tell a horror story?

Machado: The thing about Pennsylvania is so many places in the state are struggling and have been struggling for a long time because of the way industry has sort of shifted and changed. And there's a real tension between the corporations who sort of made money on the backs of the citizens of those towns, many generations of coal miners and people who worked in those places and sort of what they've become, which is very, very complicated.

It's actually very relevant even right now, I feel like Pennsylvania coal miners were very central to the last [presidential] election. There's something about that that felt super, super relevant to me and really interesting. And a really good place to tell a story about young women sort of struggling to figure out where to fit in in a town where the town itself doesn't know where it fits. There's just something about [the characters] changing and they're living in a changing world and I think it's a really good setting for a story like that.

Dani: And it's a really good setting to draw everything [laughs]!

Machado: Yeah! The landscape is so evocative and strange!

Dani, I was going to ask, how has it been rendering this world where every shadow seems like it's hiding its own sinister secret and the '90s period, in general, with all the flannel and jeans?

Dani: (laughs) I had to do research at first because I'm not from the U.S., I'm from Greece, and I realized so many things -- like the clothing and electronics -- are different, different than Greece in the '90s. But other than that, it's the perfect setting to draw because it has woods and Carmen sent a lot of images.

Machado: Yeah, the photos of what I was imagining.

Dani: Yeah! And it was really helpful for me to dive in and have a first impression about everything. It's like exploring with every issue [when] I get to read the script, I get to explore the visuals and it's really nice.

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Even in this first issue, we see really twisted things that are lurking at night. How has it been designing these creatures lurking within The Low, Low Woods?

Dani: For me, artistically, that's the secret to draw stuff like that. The magic is not to give away a lot of the visuals and always keep something back. It's like with horror and writing horror. I'm not showing everything and just keeping the readers' imagination growing and getting people scared. I'm trying this with every page and every image that I draw to keep this in mind and have all this atmosphere; it's all about atmosphere.

Carmen, there's a generational aspect to The Low, Low Woods. There's this idea that what the company has done to this town and the sins of the father being lived through the latest generation of kids. What was it about that generational aspect and legacy bleeding into horror that you wanted to tell? And will we see more of the past as this miniseries continues?

Machado: The past is definitely very important to the series, the things that have happened before the girls were even born. And I think it just fits with the horror because what is more horrifying than things that are happening that you have absolutely no control over? They happened before you were born, before you were making choices. That, to me, is truly, truly terrifying. It feels like as horrifying a premise as you could possibly imagine.

What made Dani the perfect artist to bring this horrific vision of Pennsylvania to life?

Machado: When I was going through the process of picking an artist, [DC] sent me lots of samples and I saw Dani's work and was just so moved by it; it was so creepy. I'm not an artist so I feel like I'm just going by my gut for what I like or don't like. So I looked at it and go through the whole bunch of them and it just felt right for the story, for the setting, for the characters. And when I got some early samples and character sketches [that Dani drew based on my descriptions], they were so perfect. Like everything that was in mind was so alive and now I have images of them. They were like real people that she had drawn and I was just so moved by it and just so happy that I knew I made the right choice.

Dani: I feel like because I use a lot of inks, it helped a lot as well because it's quite dark.

Machado: See, that's the more technical answer because I can't describe it (laughs). I don't know, I just liked it! There's probably a very technical explanation, but the style just fit with what I was doing.

Did it change your writing at all as the pages started to come in?

Machado: Yeah! I think because it is kind of a back and forth. I think it would have been different -- I initially sort of [tried to] write all the issues at once but, of course, I'm doing a lot of other things so I'm very slow (laughs). So I've been getting the art as I'm working on new issues and I think seeing what Dani has shaped on the page has actually really helped then shape the writing for the issues to come after so it's been a really interesting process for me.

What made you want to focus on younger characters?

Machado: It just felt like coming-of-age is horrifying; it is really horrifying growing up into a world where you're realizing what is wrong with it. That just felt correct to me, it just felt like they had to be both sort of jaded -- they're not children -- but they are also just sort of realizing how awful the world is which, I think, is a very specific sort of emotional state that you hit in your adolescence where you're not innocent but you're realizing quite the extent of the bullshit in the world; that's just the perfect age to write about.

Dani, you were mentioning you were from Greece and learning about this time period and its slice of Americana that didn't quite make it over the Mediterranean. What has been the most rewarding part of bringing The Low, Low Woods to life?

Dani: I feel like I've learned a lot of things with this book and working with this thing. Artistically, of course, I've learned to collaborate better and it's a really nice process. And learning about the U.S. in the '90s. I didn't think you could bring dogs into nursing homes because we don't have this in Greece and it was really nice to actually learn quite a few things like that. It's been quite an experience and it's really nice.

Carmen, you've done short stories and essays and novelettes. How has it been transitioning to comics as part of Hill House? What have you found rewarding about writing in this medium?

Machado: I think, for me, the collaboration because it's so different than anything else I've done. Prose writing is a fairly solitary activity; at some point you give it to an editor and there's that but it doesn't have this intense amount of collaboration. I feel like I keep sort of marshaling over the emails -- the sheer amount of emails that have to be exchanged to make each issue happen -- which I think is amazing. But the stages are so interesting watching it go through these steps. And yeah, it's definitely different than anything I've ever done before but I really love it. It's actually kind of whet my appetite for collaborative work, which was not a thing that I had really given much thought to before. It's been really interesting and completely different than any kind of prose writing that I've done in the past.

To close us out, what can we expect from The Low, Low Woods moving forward? What do you feel is unique and intriguing about this tale?

Machado: It's hard to compare it to other things. I just think people can expect queer shenanigans and horrifying monsters and hard truths and...sex! (laughs)

The Low, Low Woods #1 is written by Carmen Maria Machado and illustrated by Dani. It goes on sale Dec. 18.

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