english essay

“Arcudi and Case set a meticulous stage of regret and heartbreak that’s impossible to put down.” paste magazine

written by John Arcudi illustrated by Jonathan Case

lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot®

cover by Tonci Zonjic

chapter one title art by Frank Miller chapter two title art by Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart

chapter three title art by Ryan Sook chapter four title art by Tonci Zonjic chapter five title art by Jonathan Case

dark horse books ®

editors Scott Allie and Daniel Chabon assistant editor Shantel LaRocque designer Adam Grano publisher Mike Richardson

Mike Richardson, President and Publisher | Neil Hankerson, Executive Vice President | Tom Weddle, Chief Financial Officer | Randy Stradley, Vice President of Publishing | Michael Martens, Vice President of Book Trade Sales | Anita Nelson, Vice President of Business Affairs | Scott Allie, Editor in Chief | Matt Parkinson, Vice President of Marketing | David Scroggy, Vice President of Product Development | Dale LaFountain, Vice President of Information Technology | Darlene Vogel, Senior Director of Print, Design, and Production | Ken Lizzi, General Counsel | Davey Estrada, Editorial Director | Chris Warner, Senior Books Editor | Diana Schutz, Executive Editor | Cary Grazzini, Director of Print and Development | Lia Ribacchi, Art Director | Cara Niece, Director of Scheduling | Tim Wiesch, Director of International Licensing | Mark Bernardi, Director of Digital Publishing Published by Dark Horse Books A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. 10956 SE Main Street Milwaukie, OR 97222

First edition: April 2013 ISBN 978-1-61655-061-5

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in China

The Creep™ & © 2012, 2013 John Arcudi. All rights reserved. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental.

This book collects The Creep #0–#4, previously published by Dark Horse Comics.

— chapter one —

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— chapter two —

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— chapter three —

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— chapter four —

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— chapter five —

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case: We set Oxel’s design pretty quickly. While the initial direction I received was to essentially make him Rondo Hatton, John suggested I explore a different look, in the broader range of acromegaly. I tried to make him ugly, but not so much that I couldn’t sympathize with him.

arcudi: Getting this right was major in my book. Before Jonathan came along, Oxel just looked way too much like Rondo Hatton. It made him (wholly unintentionally) something of a caricature, no matter how well he was drawn. Some readers saw a movie heavy, not a human being. Jonathan was able to really give Oxel his own look, and that made him three-dimensional.

sketchbook

arcudi: Tonci Zonjic is amazing, and getting him (along with Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, and Ryan Sook) to do a cover for us was a great stroke of luck. As you can see here, he really fine- tuned this cover (for Dark Horse Presents #11) until he nailed it. Actually, he gave us several cover ideas, all great, but we had to reject one simply because it gave too much away for the DHP chapters. That idea later became the cover for this collection.

arcudi: Ryan Sook was another guest cover artist who gave us his all. He went through several different ideas, some pretty imaginative, until he arrived at the killer, killer “Oxel on the staircase” bit!! Moody as can be, the image at the lower right was his marker prelim—which I almost prefer to the final cover.

arcudi: Almost, because look at this! Ryan also did the colors.

arcudi: You know, looking at these cover designs by Tonci Zonjic, I have to wonder why we didn’t go with that first one. Hmmmm . . .

case: I thought I’d give our last issue the typical sleuthing guy and a dame cover, à la #3 here. I enjoyed drawing the phone conversations, and thought something incorporating that would be nice. It was time for something a little more active, though, so after many iterations, we settled on the grave take.

case: How many ways can a guy get eaten by a bear? A lot, it turns out. I think we tried upwards of a dozen takes on this panel. Thank goodness for wisecracking studiomates at Periscope!

arcudi: I’m sure I drove Jonathan crazy with this scene. Sorry, JC.

THE COMPLETE MAJOR BUMMER SUPER SLACKTACULAR! John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke

Lou Martin’s just gained incredible superpowers! Too bad all he wants to do is stay firmly planted on the couch. But an alien got Louis Martin, slacker extraordinaire, and Martin Lewis, promising young lawyer, confused and sent an Extreme Enhancement Module to the wrong guy, and now Lou’s got superheroes trying to get him to . . . ugh . . . contribute to society—and outlandish supervillains, monsters, and aliens are out to take him down!

$29.99 | 978-1-59582-534-6

B.P.R.D.: PLAGUE OF FROGS VOLUME 3 Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Guy Davis, Dave Stewart

Following the Bureau’s catastrophic encounter with the monster-god Katha-Hem, Kate heads to France with hopes of bringing Roger back to life, and Daimio reveals the truth about his death in the jungles of Bolivia. The coming frog apocalypse heats up as Abe meets a secret society of Victorian cyborgs with ties to his origins, and Liz’s visions grow increasingly dire! From Hollow Earth to King of Fear—the entire war on frogs in four volumes!

$34.99 | 978-1-59582-860-6

GREEN RIVER KILLER: A TRUE DETECTIVE STORY Jeff Jensen, Jonathan Case

Throughout the 1980s, the highest priority of Seattle-area police was the apprehension of the Green River Killer, the man responsible for the murders of dozens of women. In 1990, with the body count numbering at least forty-eight, the case was put in the hands of a single detective, Tom Jensen. After twenty years, when the killer was finally captured with the help of DNA technology, Jensen spent 180 days interviewing Gary Leon Ridgway in an effort to learn his most closely held secrets—an epic confrontation with evil that proved as disturbing and surreal as can be imagined.

$24.99 | 978-1-59582-560-5

WITCHFINDER VOLUME 2: LOST AND GONE FOREVER Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, John Severin, Dave Stewart

In the hellish frontiers of the American Wild West, nineteenth-century occult investigator Edward Grey finds himself caught in a showdown with an evil witch, bloodthirsty criminals, and zombie cowboys!

$17.99 | 978-1-59582-794-4

AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL COMICS SHOP OR BOOKSTORE To find a comics shop in your area, call 1-888-266-4226. For more information or to order direct, visit DarkHorse.com or call 1-800-862-0052 • Mon.–Fri. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Prices and availability subject to change without notice.

Text and illustrations of B.P.R.D.™ and Witchfinder™ © Mike Mignola. The Complete Major Bummer Super Slacktacular! text, illustrations and logo are ™ and © John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke. “Captain Slackass,” “Major Bummer,” and all prominent characters and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke. Text and illustrations of Green River Killer™ © Jeff Jensen.

®

ALSO BY JOHN ARCUDI AND JONATHAN CASE