The allure of a quick buck and an overnight fortune can draw people into dangerous circumstances, and in the new Vault Comics series THE RUSH it brings them right into weird West horror.
(THE RUSH is an abbreviation for This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills.)
Writer Si Spurrier and artist Nathan Gooden's THE RUSH is a story about the final year of the US Gold Rush, deep in the frozen Yukon Territory. As thousands of men and women (with their children in tow) come looking to a handful of gold amidst mountains of rock, they're disturbing something else there: a monster of a spider.
And worst yet, she's a mother who is missing her child.
"I've been fascinated by the last great gold rush all my life," Spurrier tells Newsarama. "The stories of endurance and desperation, the mass hysteria, the casual disregard for life - and all of it dwarfed by the manic, burning, all-consuming lust for a fleeting, forlorn chance at wealth.
"This is the perfect time and place to tell stories in which the mythologies and parables of ancient times - all those wonderful cautionary tales about avarice and monsters that slither wherever men's lusts override their rationality - can be brought beautiful and meaningfully to life."
Spurrier says his recent experience becoming a parent for the first time, led him to twist that with "the pure, unalloyed and unquenchable love another has for her child."
Even if they're monsters.
Check out this preview of THE RUSH #1:
Spurrier and Gooden are joined on THE RUSH by colorist Addison Duke, letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and designer Tim Daniel. Gooden has drawn the primary cover to THE RUSH #1, joined with variants by Martin Simmonds and Daniel.
"This is the story I've been waiting to tell since I started in comics. I am a huge western fan," says Gooden. "In fact, my first project ever in comics is a self-published graphic novel, Dead Eye; a horror story set in the late 1800s West. One of my favorite comics growing up was the anthology series, Western Tales of Terror. I'm always drawn to the genre, so when I first read the outline for The Rush, I knew I had to be a part of it."
THE RUSH #1 goes on sale on October 27.
THE RUSH joins a growing crop of great horror comics - but will it make our list of the best horror comics?
