Horror Beat: MIKE CHOI embarks on AWA’s Future of Fear with KILL OR BE KILLED

Artist Mike Choi claims he’s not a “horror guy.” Spend a few minutes talking to him, though, and it quickly becomes apparent that nothing but the opposite is true in that statement. The minute we sat down, as I was setting up for the interview, he threw out some of horror’s best examples to kick off the conversation, from Martyrs (the French New Extremity classic) to Hostel and even Bernie Wrightson’s chilling 10-page comic Jennifer.

Further evidence of Choi’s affinity to horror lies in his upcoming work for AWA and Vertigo Entertainment’s new horror collection “The Future of Fear,” a series of comics, illustrated prose, TV, and film projects designed to look into the genre to explore terrors both present and future.

Choi’s contribution comes in the form of Kill or be Killed, an illustrated prose novella that takes the ‘internet challenge’ concept and adds a serial killer to it. Written by Peter Tyerias (author of the amazing Mecha Samurai Empire), the story centers on the Friendship Killer, a man who likes to play a twisted game with the latest toys. He picks a target and then asks them to kill someone on livestream, so the act itself is there to be witnessed. If they refuse, someone they love dies.

It’s a clever concept that feels urgent, like an inevitability given the current trends in tech. Choi gives each of his illustrations that same feel, infusing digital imagery with a deep sense of dread and doom. It perfectly captures the collection’s mission statement. Look to the present for the horrors that are sure to come.

The Future of Fear debuted with an illustrated novella called Look Out, written by Dan Baillie and illustrated by Tim Bradstreet. It follows a recently divorced man that takes a job as a fire lookout in a remote forest outpost. He finds a piece of paper with directions on how to survive through the night, but laughs it off as a prank. Turns out he’ll need it come nightfall.

I sat down with Choi at San Diego Comic Con to talk Kill or be Killed and why he was lying on not being a horror guy.

RICARDO SERRANO: Was horror something you were itching to get into more

MIKE CHOI: I’m not necessarily a horror fan. I don’t look forward to the next horror thing. What I do love is good entertainment. I love great movies. And if they happen to be horror, I will watch them and enjoy them. We were just talking about Martyrs before the interview started. It is famous for being very divisive in terms of people enjoying it or not enjoying it because of the gore and the more brutal aspects of it. It affects you in a way that I think all artists are trying to do. So, I’m going to seek out and watch good movies, and if they happen to be horror, then I’ll enjoy that aspect of it too. And then I’ll deal with not sleeping afterwards.

SERRANO: Mention of Martyrs might suggest you’re more into horror than you might be suggesting. What other horror books or movies did you bring with you when working on Kill or be Killed?

CHOI: I don’t necessarily want to pigeonhole the book as horror. I know that’s what we’re going to say the book is, and it does belong in the genre. But I borrowed a lot in terms of how I wanted the reader to feel from movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs. They’re very similar movies that share a lot with horror, but the reason why they’re so popular now is because they brought so many ideas together that they became unique pieces of film.

When you leave the theater after watching these movies, you’re gobsmacked. And as you’re watching it, your adrenaline rises and your heart beats faster. You don’t know where it’s gonna take you. But then they don’t get called horror movies outright. They’re actually considered thrillers.

If you were to call Kill or be Killed a thriller, I would obviously agree with it. If you call it horror, then yes, there are definitely things I took from horror movies in there. I think a lot of horror comes from what normal people will be driven to do in certain situations that they would never consider doing regularly. I think there’s something very horrific in that mindset.

I say I’m not a horror fan, but it’s hard not to take ideas from it and see how other genres come into it. Event Horizon, for example, might be a little out of world in terms of context, but the way it goes about establishing location, time, and atmosphere still lets a human story play out in terms of what we do with regret, failure, and guilt. It asks us to consider how we live with that, if you decide to live with it in the first place. And that’s what that movie is about. You want to call it a horror movie, great. But I think that there’s more there as well.

SERRANO: It’s going with story and intention first and then seeing which genres best help bring it to life.

CHOI: That’s how it was with the comic we made. It certainly didn’t start out specifically as a horror story. I think the best horror movies don’t just start out as that. They become that in the process.

SERRANO: Now that you’ve done Kill or be Killed, is there another horror itch that you can now scratch? Something you’ve always wanted to do, or that you’re looking forward to doing in another horror book?

CHOI: I love working in different styles right now. I can say I haven’t done anything supernatural, though. That might be cool. The itch that was scratched with Kill or be Killed revolved around capturing something horrific that lives in our brains. It’s about trying to recreate the things that would affect readers in a similar way.

A lot of the things that I drew hung on points of view, creating this voyeuristic view of TikTok videos, POV videos, and day in the life videos. People already know what that is, they’re invested in it. Then the challenge is finding out how to express our connection to life as viewed through our tech devices.

Man, I say I’m not a horror fan, but a good example of this is Hannibal, the Ridley Scott one. There’s that shot where this guy falls off a roof and it’s just a splash of gore. We see the damage, how disgusting it is. You immediately start wondering if you’re supposed to develop feelings for this man. Does the blood and guts change our relationship with him? That’s an interesting spot to put viewers in. I like to think we achieved something similar with Kill or be Killed. We wanted readers to reflect on how we relate to people and what they mean to us when viewed exclusively through a screen.