Patrick Horvath has taken his cuddly serial killer comic, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees. He turned it into a bona fide hit franchise for indie publisher IDW, and now he’s expanding it with fresh voices. A Halloween anthology one-shot is coming, brimming with horror comic all-stars.
Horvath has brought on board several of his favorite horror writers, including James Tynion IV, the creator of Something Is Killing the Children and The Nice House on the Lake. Tony Fleecs, the writer of Feral, and Absolute Catwoman co-author Che Grayson, among others. The line-up has artists including TMNT illustrator Dave Wachter and Usagi Yojimbo cartoonist Jared Cullum.
The Halloween-themed anthology will hit stores on October 7.
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees is a Dexter-meets-Richard Scarry comic. It’s about a brown bear named Samantha Strong, a seemingly decent hardware-store owner. Except, in reality, they are a serial killer living in the pastoral suburban town of Woodbrook. It sounds ridiculous on paper. In practice, it works beautifully.
The comic has sold more than 400,000 copies for IDW, making it the publisher’s biggest-selling original-run series. The six-issue comic was an unexpected smash when it debuted in 2023. Horvath was quickly tasked with working on a second volume, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring, which launches later this year. A third volume is also in the pipeline.
The One-Shot
Information on the Halloween one-shot is being kept under wraps. But we do know it takes place in the years before Strong dramatically abandoned the town of Woodbrook.
James Tynion IV, for his part, made clear this was a project he wanted to be part of. “Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees is one of my favorite comics of the past few years,” he said in a statement, calling it “a pleasure to be invited to have a bit of gruesome fun in this killer, off-kilter world Patrick has created.”
Tony Fleecs echoed that enthusiasm. “I was a Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees fan before almost anyone,” Tony Fleecs said. “I read a review copy before the first issue came out and haven’t stopped loudly singing its praises since.”
Horvath’s previous work shows that he didn’t switch careers from filmmaker to comics creator without keeping the knack for making something grounded, oddly charming, and genuinely dark under the surface.
And capping this off on a Halloween release window with such a solid talent roster on hand feels more like a proper expansion to a burgeoning franchise than a side project.
