Acclaimed Marvel Cover Artist Juan Doe Reveals New Sci-Fi/Horror Book

Artist Juan Doe is teaming with AfterShock Comics on a new one-shot, which will be titled Spectro.

In its announcement, AfterShock confirmed Doe would take on all creative duties for Spectro, which is billed as horror tales with a sci-fi bent and releases May 18. "Spectro is my spin on the horror anthology," Doe said of the title. He then explained the book would examine a few specific themes, including "the fear of social failure and its consequences. The fear of not being recognized, appreciated or seen. The fear of success, of giving in to your ego. The fear of hope, of believing in something good that may never come. [...] Spectro as a title or theme is a reference to spectrography, to the breakdown of the spectrum of light and I liked the idea of a spectrum of stories both visible and invisible that could be explored."

Speaking about his inspiration for the book, Doe mentioned such other sci-fi/horror anthologies as Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside. "With the name Spectro," Doe explained, "I also wanted to evoke the vintage science fiction pulps I was a fan of, especially Weird Science from EC comics. This book is an homage to that cosmic horror ethos."

Doe also addressed his approach to art for the book, saying, “Like most of my art duties in comics, it begins with the scripts and the way the story unfolds plays a big part in the style of art. For Spectro, I knew that each story would have its own distinctive color palette but I never know what any project will look like until I'm in the middle of it and that's an exciting place to be as a creator. The results are always a surprise and if people have a great reaction to the art in conjunction with the story, then that's the best success you could ask for.”

As for the challenges of helming all creative duties on Spectro, Doe explained, "I'd say the biggest challenge with this book was just creating and envisioning 4 distinct universes and characters that would be experiencing their own narratives but would feel like all the stories were tangentially connected. It took a while but figuring out how these stories will play out is one of the best parts of this challenge and once you figure out your sensibilities as a storyteller then that challenge becomes about execution and that's always the fun part."

You can read the solicitation for Spectro below alongside unlettered preview pages for the title.