Work of my Pals: Men of the Cloth by Paul Kane

I'm kicking off a new occasional feature today: The Work of My Pals – a chance to chat with creative chums about their current projects.

First up is author Paul Kane and his new graphic novel, Men of the Cloth.

Horror writers are almost universally a decent bunch – mainly as they spend their days pouring their demons onto the page rather than inflicting them on everyone else – and Paul is no exception to the rule. The author of the post-apocalyptic Hooded Man trilogy, Paul has written and edited over 100 books, including the anthologies Wonderland, The Other Side of Neverland and Folk Horror Short Stories, all of which feature stories by yours truly.

Men of the Cloth is a 60-page graphic novel published by Hellbound Media with art and letters by James Gray.

Photographer Lance Dunham has a simple desire: to visit the country of his birth. But when he arrives in England with his wife and kids in tow, Lance realises that the picturesque village of Camlin is far from the idyllic retreat he imagined.

Intrigued? Good. Over to Paul himself...

Let's start at the beginning. What exactly is Men of the Cloth?

Men of the Cloth was originally a prose novelette I wrote that appeared in my collection The Spaces Between many years ago, all stories of about 10,000 words or so. It had a terrific original cover by The Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard, so I suppose the comics connection was right there from the start. I got the idea to turn the story into a comic after having a stab at my first few scripts, and found it just lent itself to that format. Seeing the results has been better than I ever could have imagined!

Every story starts somewhere. What was the inspiration for the original novelette?

It was basically inspired by my time working out in the community as a college tutor, when I used to drive to isolated villages in the countryside to deliver art or creative writing classes. One day, I spotted lots of little scarecrows in the gardens of one place, smaller than usual and dressed as postmen, businessmen, housewives or whatever. It was oddly compelling and quite chilling, I thought. It sparked the idea for this story: someone born in the UK but taken to the US by his mother tries to reconnect with his past – with monstrous results!

It was also obviously influenced by all the great folk horror movies of the past, like The Wicker Man, Children of the Corn, and Hot Fuzz, where weird things happen in small rural locations. This being me, it also took some cues from Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex, not least the fish-out-of-water family that winds up in the middle of nowhere. 

Sharp-eyed horror fans may have spotted a connection between Men of the Cloth and your film, Sacrifice. How are the two linked?

Men of the Cloth was one of the stories I sent to Loose Canon films when they asked if I had any folk horror tales. Writer-directors Andy Collier and Tor Mian adapted it, transferring the action to Norway and giving it all a Lovecraftian slant.

When they then told me horror legend Barbara Crampton from Re-Animator was going to star, I couldn’t stop grinning for a week.

Sacrifice premiered at FrightFest, and went on to become a cult favourite with places like the Hollywood News saying nice things like: "Collier and Mian tease the audience, relishing in squeezing suspense and intrigue from every inch of celluloid, in order to maximise audience participation. We all love a good mystery, and Sacrifice has that in abundance."

Every project leaves you with something. What are you taking away from this one?

That I love writing comic scripts – but I’ve known that for a while now. I’ve been involved in a few that didn’t work out, like the motion comic adaptation of ‘In the Hills, the Cities’ and an adaptation of my own novel Lunar.

Hellbound Media released my only comic to date, the award-nominated The Disease, so I’ve also learned to work with people who are on the same wavelength as me for projects such as this one. They totally got what I was trying to do with Men of the Cloth, as did artist/letterer James Gray, whose credits include Star Trek and Gerry Anderson’s Project SWORD.

The main thing I’ll be taking into the next project is a sense of enthusiasm and hope. 

Before we send people off to investigate Men of the Cloth for themselves, there's one vitally important question I need to ask...

Worzel Gummidge: Folk hero or folk horror?

To me, he’ll always be a hero, because of the performance by the late, great Jon Pertwee – to my shame, I still haven’t caught up with the more recent iteration on TV – but it depends on how you feel about scarecrows in general, really. Having anything that shouldn’t be alive come to life is pretty terrifying, no matter what or who it is – which scarecrows tend to tap into. So to some, he might actually be a figure of folk horror. Being a horror writer, I guess I’m the wrong person to ask about that, though! It’s all quite comforting to me, if I’m honest.

I loved Worzel too, although I admit that he sometimes gave me the heebie-jeebies – admittedly not as much as the strawmen in Men of the Cloth.

If you're feeling brave yourself, head over to Kickstarter to see what's lurking in the gardens of Camlin.