An exclusive look into Image Comics' Slumber, a new horror series that focuses on a young nightmare hunter and her vampire partner, shows off some appropriately creepy artwork full of blood, tickle monsters and more.

Slumber is an upcoming horror comic book series that Images Comics will release later this month. The company provided CBR with an exclusive look at some of the artwork featured in Slumber #1, which is drawn by Vanessa Cardinali and written by Tyler Burton Smith. Smith wrote the 2019 Child's Play reboot and is working up the upcoming Kung Fury film that's set to release later this year.

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Slumber follows a young nightmare hunter and dream detective named Stetson, who runs a somewhat shady back-alley business that allows her to enters into clients' dreams and kill off whatever nightmares might be plaguing them. While dealing with some elements from her past, the job becomes increasingly more dangerous when Stenson begins hunting a serial killer murdering people in their sleep.

Smith told CBR that Stetson is accompanied by a sidekick employee called Jiangshi, who is also a "nightmare zombie vampire," throughout the series. "He's the voice of reason playing against Stetson's self-sabotaging roguish mischief," he said. "Here we get to see Jiangshi rescue Stetson from a harrowing nightmare as they escape through the red door that is used to transition from the dream world back into reality."

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The preview shows Stetson wielding a shotgun while dealing with monsters she refers to as "furry nightmare carnies" or demonic-looking teddy bears. Jiangshi is also there, coming to her aid and extracting her from a twisted, carnival-themed nightmare through the aforementioned red door. Elsewhere, we see other monstrously evil-looking creatures -- something resembling a tickle monster, for example -- attacking someone else stuck inside the dream.

For Cardinali, Slumber is an opportunity to explore what makes something or someone a monster on a couple of different levels. "Everybody has that dream about being chased by hordes of monsters, and just when it seems they are upon you, you wake up," she told CBR. "In this scene though, the only way to 'wake up' is to go back through the red magical door that brings you back to real life. All the 'real world' pages have a black closure, as opposed to the dream scenes. This is because I wanted it to be clear to the reader -- even visually -- that no matter how many monsters chase you in your dreams, reality will always be darker, at least for Stetson."

Image Comics will release the 40-page Slumber #1 on March 16.

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Source: Image Comics