Door to Door, Night by Night, a new Vault Comics series, combines the shenanigans of door-to-door sales with a dash of horror.
Written by Cullen Bunn (Uncanny X-Men, Cyberpunk 2077: Trauma Team) and illustrated by Sally Cantirino (Human Remains, I Walk With Monsters), Door to Door, Night by Night stars a group of misfit salespeople who peddle wars by day and hunt the monsters that prey on local citizens at night. "They're the best at what they do...which also means they're the worst," Vault's description of the series reads. "They're broken, each and every one of them, haunted by closets so full of skeletons, they're bursting. When they discover a terrible secret behind one fateful door, it opens their eyes to a world full of real monsters hidden in every small town."
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According to Bunn and Cantirino, Door to Door, Night by Night is a deeply personal book, with much of its inspiration stemming from both creators' fathers. "I often traveled with my dad on his sales trips, and I met some of the most interesting characters you might ever hope to meet," Bunn said. "Chief among those interesting individuals, though, were the members of the sales team themselves. They were, as I recall, an odd lot, a collection of burnouts and drunks and ne’er-do-wells, all of whom were good at one thing -- sales -- and not much else... I got to thinking, though. What if they were up to something more… something supernatural… when night fell. "
Bunn further stressed that the protagonists of the story were not necessarily heroic. "They’re in over their heads pretty much from the beginning," he said. "I mean, I knew these guys. They were in over their heads in most of their daily activities, and that was before demons and the living dead and worse got thrown into the mix...Why would my dad hire such a motley assortment of characters? He had his reasons. And those reasons come across in this story. This is both a horror book and a humor book in equal measure."
Cantirino, in contrast, said she channeled the likeness of her father -- a carpenter who had always spent his days traveling between job sites -- for Fred, one of the book's main characters. "Cullen gave me a description of Fred as a guy wearing polo shirts and jeans, hair thinning, sporting a mustache," she said. "I compiled some reference photos, including one of my dad from the same time period Door to Door is set, matching that description and sitting on a terrible plaid couch, drinking a beer next to a friend’s baby. I didn’t indicate that it was my dad in that jumble of reference photos, but Cullen picked him out of the line-up and said something like, 'that guy in the top left corner, but with more meat on his bones,' and that was it for me. We had somehow managed to both channel each others’ dads into the comic without realizing it."
With its emphasis on the life of salespeople, the paranormal and a smattering of fatherly inspiration, Door to Door, Night by Night goes on sale Nov. 16 from Vault Comics. Issue #1 features a script by Bunn, art by Cantirino, colors by Dee Cunniffe, letters by Jim Campbell, design work by Tim Daniel and a variant cover by Brian Hurtt.
Source: Vault Comics