What if the TWILIGHT ZONE and McSweeney’s Made a Baby?
(And The Baby was a Hardcover Treasury of Comics? )
Brian Hurtt, Marie Enger and Matt Kindt present the HEK Treasury and Launch HEK Studios
3 Acclaimed Creators * 1 Hardcover Treasury * Over 100 Pages of Stories
#WhatThe #HEK
August 12, 2019) What if….
What if the TWILIGHT ZONE and McSweeney’s made a baby?
And what if the baby was one hardcover treasury of comics — curated and created by three acclaimed creators — featuring over 100 pages of story and art?
Brian Hurtt, Marie Enger and Matt Kindt present The HEK Treasury, a deluxe collection of all new epic, experimental science fiction, fantasy and genre short stories. The HEK Treasury will showcase each creator as they unleash new ideas, using experimental art and storytelling techniques. If funded through Kickstarter, pledges will be delivered to backers this fall. The HEK TREASURY Kickstarter campaign is live as of August 12th and runs for 30 days.
The HEK Treasury will be presented in a large prestige format hardcover (8 ¾ x 11 5/8 )* and offer readers an immersive experience, featuring full color art, a tri-fold narrative poster and loose-leaf story cards. Hurtt, Enger, and Kindt began sharing a studio in St. Louis in 2015 and have been creating graphic novels and comic books side by side for the last four years. This is their first truly collaborative effort and the inaugural publication by their new collective, HEK Studios.
“My first book was published in 2001 and I’ve been publishing ever since,” said Matt Kindt, the bestselling creator of Mind MDMT and DEPT. H. “But it didn’t start that way. I did over 600 pages of mini-comics from the end of high school until I was out of college in 1995. And for the next five years I continued to write and draw and self-publish my own comics. I was playing around with the form even then. Using special papers and mixing paper and binding techniques to make some strange looking books. Once I was published, a lot of that formal experimentation got left behind. I’ve spent the majority of my career working within the covers and on the pages – trying to push comics into new territory within certain boundaries and limitations that traditional publishing requires.”
Matt’s contribution to The HEK Treasury is “The Great Mech Wars,” 3 interconnecting 10-page chapters presenting the tale of an old, sad war-mech.
“When Brian approached me with the idea of doing a studio project, I immediately said yes,” said Kindt. “It was a no-brainer. It was a chance to work with both Brian and Marie, and I liked the idea of the format – a big sci-fi fantasy magazine or European album formatted book. It allows us to use bigger pages and to play with the panel layouts in new ways that a traditionally sized comic doesn’t. Also the expectations of a large prestige style book are greater so it’s a chance to really blow out the art and do something really special.”
Marie’s Enger’s stories for the The HEK Treasury share a dystopian theme of bleak, fantastical, ruined worlds and great despair — leading to new, dangerous, beginnings. From death cults to telepathy, her stories push the outer limits of storytelling.
“I’m really afraid of change,” said Marie’s Enger, the creator of the table-top RPG CASKET LAND and the graphic retelling of NOSFERATU. “That is super weird to say, because I think if you want to make art, you have to...adapt to changes very quickly. I don’t. I get scared, I get anxious. I love telling stories about that kind of stuff too - things changing (and not usually for the better), people being thrown out of their routine into something strange, or rotten, or dust covered, or bloody. I sit with all these short little stories in my head, they’re not enough for full length graphic novels, or even a single issue sometimes.”
Brian Hurtt’s stories, like Matt’s, consist of three interconnected dystopian tales, featuring weaponized flora and fauna, suspended animation and mutants.
“This got dark,” said Hurtt. “But these stories will transport you, off our couch, out of your car, away from your phones and into…”
“THE TWILIGHT ZONE?” asked Kindt.
“OUTER PLACES” asked Enger.
“I was going to say amazing stories,” said Hurtt. “Our goal is to be the “McSweeney’s of comic book publishers – presenting challenging works in all genres that pushing the format and medium into new places.”
Last summer, HEK Studios purchased a vintage Route 66 garage (circa 1953). They’ve been working on converting it into the first full-time exclusive comic book studio in St. Louis.
“In addition to publishing through Kickstarter, HEK Studio intends to make a shared creative space for visiting writers and artists and eventually host boutique comic book creation workshops that will be open to the public and make available our combined 45 years of experience in the industry,” said Kindt. “We’ll continue to work with traditional publishers, but we have big plans for HEK Studios.”
The HEK TREASURY Kickstarter campaign is live now at https://www.kickstarter.com/
About The Creators:
Brian Hurtt is the artist and co-creator (along with Cullen Bunn) of the critically acclaimed comic series, The Sixth Gun and The Damned. He is also a contributor to the popular web and print comic Table Titans, where he was the artist and writer for Volumes 3 and 4 in the series. Brian is also the co-creator and co-writer of Shadow Roads (Oni) and Manor Black (Dark Horse).
Marie Enger is the creator and artist behind the eldritch stoner comic, FHTAGN and LOATHING, the table-top RPG CASKET LAND, and the graphic retelling of NOSFERATU! She largely self publishes, but has done comics and covers for Rick and Morty, Invader ZIM, Adventure Time, Rocko’s Modern Life, and is the artist behind PUP’s “PINE POINT” and “THE COAST.” She’s won no awards, but once won a bike for selling a lot of wrapping paper.
Matt Kindt is the New York Times bestselling writer and artist of the comics and graphic novels Dept. H, Mind MGMT, Revolver, 3 Story, Super Spy, 2 Sisters, and Pistolwhip, as well as Justice League of America (DC), Spider-Man (Marvel), Unity, Ninjak, Rai, and Divinity (Valiant). He has been nominated for 4 Eisner and 6 Harvey Awards (and won once). His work has been published in French, Spanish, Italian, German and Korean. The author lives in St. Louis, MO, with his wife and Dept H. collaborator, the colorist and artist Charlene Kindt.
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