Check Out This Preview for a Sci-Fi Horror Comic Titled HA.I.LEY from Paper Movies

Paper Movies is a new publisher in the comic and graphic novel department. One of their new graphic novels is ha.i.ley from writer Shane Riches and artist Jared Barel. Here’s a brief description of what to expect from the series:

[ha.i.ley] feels like a lost episode of Black Mirror, revolving around an assistant android who hunts down her family after an affair with its husband. It's a slice of taut sci-fi horror, with a hybrid digital/photo art direction from Barel.

Riches explained how he played with genre in the following statement:

“If I told you there’s a new household A.I. available that’ll cook you dinner, clean the bathrooms, feed the pet and knows your most personal desires, whether that’s stroking your ego or fulfilling a bedroom fantasy, I suspect a lot of people would rush out and buy it. Sounds almost too good to be true. So with ha.i.ley, we take something that sounds incredible, almost too amazing, and then flip it into a scary-as-hell monster. That’s wicked subversion at its best. Primal wishes being satisfied at a terrible cost to our own humanity and psychology.

Specifically, on the sci-fi side, ha.i.ley is true science fiction—the world we’re on the verge of either creating or crashing, depending on your point of view. All the technology is plausible and grounded. It brings instant gratification, but is that a good thing? What does that do to our basic humanity? No matter how good a computer code may be, it’s still task-focused, not human, ‘living life’ focused.”

He then talked about his inspiration for the graphic novel:

“I look at fantastic TV series like FARGO or THE LEFTOVERS. They populate these immersive, amazing worlds with extraordinarily complex characters; real people who often make stupid, horrendous choices and attempt to make amends and put the genie back in the bottle. And these worlds are also mischievously funny. That’s life. Messy, chaotic, yet sometimes a barrelful of laughs even at its bleakest.

So, with HA.I.LEY it was important that we run with a flawed leads—both the husband and the wife are seduced by the A.I., but in completely different manners. He’s a screwup, literally does the stupidest thing possible to his marriage for a few minutes of carnal pleasure. Can he be redeemed? Do we root for them as a couple? Add a sprinkling or two of perverse humor. Make no mistake, it’s vicious and scary, but we can also have fun with the idiocy of human choices in the face of a machine designed to look and feel like us, but is nonetheless code and synthetics. A modern Frankenstein monster of our own creation.

Film-wise, FATAL ATTRACTION undoubtedly had influence, the standard bearer in examining affairs. But that was three flesh-and-blood human beings; ha.i.ley revolves around a married couple and a machine. That was a real pleasure in writing—reminding myself that a machine is not emotive, but instead task-oriented. Think the original TERMINATOR film with its vicious calculations or the cold, relentless fright of say, John Carpenter’s THE THING. Horror at its finest and most terrifying.”

Barel added a statement about his process and inspiration for the art:

“This was actually my first full length OGN as the sole artist working with a writer other than myself, so it was an interesting experience to say the least! Shane is a very detailed writer who knows exactly what he wants to see in every panel. I often found myself going back to the script again and again to make sure that I got all of the specifics right. Thankfully, Shane and I had a great rapport working together and the back and forth was effortless and yielded a book I’m very proud to have had the opportunity to illustrate.

For this book I found myself going back to classic thrillers to get a sense of framing and camera angles and color palettes. In general, I try and keep my sequential art cinematic and give the viewer a sense of reading a movie and having genre references are a good point of entry to really nail the feeling we’re going for. In specific, I remember rewatching FATAL ATTRACTION to really pinpoint how the image transformed from telling the tail of an illicit affair to an outright horrific thriller.”

You can check out the preview for ha.i.ley below and you’ll be able to read the graphic novel on January 15.