DF Interview: Jordan Hart & Chris Ryall ‘Dread the Halls’ with your new favorite ghost stories – at Christmastime?!

By Byron Brewer

Long before Americans celebrated horror on Halloween, the Victorians did it gathered around a fireplace on Christmas Eve. Dread the Halls honors this macabre tradition by wishing you and yours "Happy Holidays" with stories of ghosts, ghastly abominations and vile creatures.

From Image Comics, the seasonal one-shot is written by Jordan Hall and Chris Ryall with interior art by Lee Ferguson, Fabio Veras, Jimmy Jucaj and Walter Pax. Covers are by artists Maria The Wolf, Marguerite Sauvage, a wrapping-paper variant by scribe Hart, and a holiday homage cover by Ferguson. So check out my discussion of the coming comic with Hart and Ryall, and spread the dread this season in horrifically festive style!

Byron Brewer: Jordan & Chris, tell readers about the unique inspiration and genesis for this coming holiday horror one-shot, Dread the Halls.

Jordan Hart: I loved the supernatural as a kid, likely because of my obsession with Ghostbusters. One December I picked up on the line “There'll be scary ghost stories…” that’s sung in ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.’ I asked my mom about these alleged holiday spirits and she pointed out how A Christmas Carol is a ghost story. My young mind was blown, but not as much as it would be in a decade when my grandmother told my siblings, cousins, and I that Krampus visited her one year.

Her family was displaced after World War II and the last town she lived before immigrating to the U.S. was a Bavarian village that had a certain holiday tradition. On the night of December 5^th, two villagers would dress up as Saint Nicolas and Krampus -- complete with taxidermized head, hooves, chains, and three-foot tongue --  and go door-to-door judging every child in the town. She was inside when she heard chains dragging across the cobblestone, then a bang at the door. When it was opened, it was Nicolas and Krampus, there to decide her fate. She then had to kneel as they debated if she had been good or bad. She passed the test, but said it was one of the scariest moments of her life. Thanks to the movie and social media, there’s a growing awareness of Krampus in pop culture, but back when she told us this story we had no idea about the lore. That night, I decided I would write a story about her experience one day, but one in which she fights back…which can be found in Dread the Halls!

Byron: This is a very out-of-order Q, but describe the assembling (and the fun!) of the covers for this book. I understand Jordan was a big part of this?

Jordan Hart: One of the best parts of my friendship with Chris is our shared love of spinner racks. We both own multiple and send each other theme ideas almost every week. Over the years, we’ve identified several holiday motifs for our spinners. There’s a deep and rich history of holiday one-shots and covers, so I knew we needed to swing hard to honor the tradition with this book. I’ve been a massive fan of Maria the Wolf for a while and I was lucky enough to meet her at C2E2. Her work is so detailed yet crazy-in-the-best-way that I knew she would be the perfect fit. Looking at her portfolio and original art at C2E2, it was instantly clear she could create the craziest Krampus cover comics has seen. After the show, I emailed her and asked if she’d like to do it with full freedom to render whatever she wants. The next day she replied and as you can see, she absolutely killed it.

Dread the Halls is an idea we’ve been talking about for years. From the beginning, I wanted to create a functional cover that could be used as a gift. So I illustrated a wrapping paper design that incorporates an icon from each of the four stories. What I’m most excited about is the gift tag masthead…I hope people fill in the “To:” and “From:” spaces and give it to a friend. Don’t worry, it won’t affect your CGC grade!

Lee signed on to do the EC homage Chris wanted [as Chris details below]. So it felt like we just needed one more cover that was less stylized than the other three but just as captivating. Marguerite Sauvage, one of the most talented and kind creators I know, instantly came to mind. She loved the concept and put her remarkable spin on a snowsuit-clad ghost from the 1970s. The art she delivered perfectly balances the lineup. I feel like there’s a cover for nearly all reader tastes.

Chris Ryall: Jordan deserves the applause for lining up such amazing covers – as well as creating a great one himself with the “wrapping paper” variant. For the cover that reflects my story, I knew I wanted to homage one of my favorite EC covers – that great Al Feldstein image for Panic #1, with the kid who set a pretty vicious trap for Santa. Artist Lee Ferguson captured that spirit nicely, and Jordan (him again!) created the logo and text treatments to help the cover really pay off that EC vibe.

Byron: What is the content of this one-shot? Several stories by you two? One long tale with break-outs? A haunting “host”?

Chris Ryall: There’s no horror host, but each of the stories definitely stands apart from one another in terms of tone and art style. Three of the stories are Jordan’s, and they’re all really nicely varied in terms of the content and the overall visual approach too. I’m just hoping my one story doesn’t break the great vibe he created with his stories. I don’t think I did, but as with all such things readers will decide.

Jordan Hart: We took a very ‘80s Marvel holiday approach to the one-shot. I loved those as a kid -- Bizarre Adventures #34 being both my favorite issue and cover. The stories in those books were holiday-themed but totally different in style and tone. We’re a little more focused because each story in Dread the Halls is horror, but the genre spectrum ranges from supernatural to creature feature to classic thriller. And each has its own unique style in storytelling and visuals! 

Byron: Can you elaborate on the terror-filled tale(s) to be presented in Dread the Halls?

Jordan Hart: For my Krampus story, I wanted to empower the children that the beast has terrorized. It’s sort of like It in that way. It centers on a young girl that believes she can kill Krampus and save her brother. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a different version of my grandmother’s experience. “Northerners” is a creature survival story set in an ice fishing shed on Christmas Eve. It smashes inner conflicts like loss and remorse into surviving an attack from an ancient cryptid. And “Dead Notes” is a modern ghost story where the antagonists are an innocent looking family of…Christmas carolers.

Chris Ryall: The story that Lee Ferguson and I are doing is called “Gone Fishing,” and it involves a couple of kids who decide that the big fish they want to catch on December 24 is the guy who comes down their chimney. Only who said there’s only ONE person who slips into peoples’ houses on the Night Before Christmas…?

Byron: I understand we have some wonderful art INSIDE the fun covers of this holiday special. Who is in our horrific holiday lineup?

Jordan Hart: Fàbio Veras has been busy with work for DC over the past year but was able to squeeze-in time for “Dead Notes.” His ink style was so perfect for a ghost story set during a power outage. Jimmy Kucaj is a name I think everyone will know soon. I met him in artist alley at C2E2 and he handled “Krampus Slayers” with a fantastic amount of style and expression. Finally, Walter Pax brought “Northerners” to life with his hyper-detailed pencil style. His renders give the story a dream-like feel, almost like a Victorian tale, which was perfect for the tone and theme of the narrative.

Chris Ryall: Lee Ferguson did the EC-style cover and art for my “Gone Fishing” story and, fresh off Predator vs Black Panther like he is, he delivered the right amount of savagery and sweetness that this story called for. Well, one of those two things anyway. Some stories just don’t call for sweetness, you know? 

Byron: If you can, and I don’t think this is overselling, you both seemed to have tremendous fun with this book and its homage to the days ghost stories were spun during the yuletide (look at A Christmas Carol, as you earlier said) rather than Halloween. Talk a little more about that.

Chris Ryall: It’s a known and accepted fact the world over that Halloween is the best of all holidays, so I’ve always loved Christmas stories that are infused with some of that dark and creepy Halloween spirit. It’s a nice counter-balance to the December holiday, which is often filled with overly-schmaltzy and sweet stories. So yes, with everything from A Christmas Carol to The Nightmare Before Christmas to more recent movies like Violent Night—not to mention all the holiday-themed slasher flicks—clearly more people than just Jordan and I are looking for holiday stories with a harder or more wicked edge. And for everyone who is looking for that, well, Dread the Halls is our gift to you.

Byron: Chris & Jordan, what can you tell us individually about projects coming up, inside or outside comics?

Jordan Hart: Right now, my Eisner- and Harvey-nominated series about a diabetic superhero, Ripple Effects, is on Kickstarter for a hardcover, deluxe edition. We’re funded but have plenty of stretch goals we’re still trying to hit to donate more copies to libraries and schools. The Cabinet, a supernatural adventure series that was published by Chris himself at Image/Syzygy this year, returns to stores as a collected trade paperback on November 5^th. And after Dread the Halls hits shops on December 4^th, Chris and I will start working on our Spring Break-themed horror anthology. I’m kidding. But actually that might not be a bad idea?

Chris Ryall: I’m in the middle of finalizing the slate of Image/Syzygy titles for 2025, and amidst that, I’ve also got two big Marvel archival books releasing in October – Origins of Marvel Comics: The Deluxe 50^th Anniversary Edition (October 1, Simon & Schuster) and The Mighty Marvel Calendar Book: A Visual History (Abrams ComicArts, October 15), Jacob Phillips, Francis Ford Coppola, and I are wrapping up our big Megalopolis graphic novel, I’m finishing up a second Savage Sword of Conan script now (and wait until I can talk about the artists involved with my two stories!), and have a few other so-far-unannounced Marvel-related projects I’ll be able to talk about before too much longer. It’s been a pretty wild few months of overlapping projects, after some months that… were less encouraging, and I’m pretty excited to have all of these projects finally nearing completion and/or release!

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Jordan Hart & Chris Ryall for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions. The Dread the Halls one-shot from Syzygy Publishing and Image Comics is slated to be on sale December 4!

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