The Nocturnals Return Down a Sinister Path by Jerry Whitworth
On the heels of the release of Nocturnals: Legend, an art book by Big Wow! Art celebrating twenty years of Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals, a Kickstarter campaign to fund Nocturnals: The Sinister Path has recently gone live. The first original story centering around Brereton’s band of Halloween-inspired pulp/horror characters since 2008, the Nocturnals tells the story of occult adventurer Doc Horror, his clairvoyant daughter Eve (aka Halloween Girl), her silent guardian Gunwitch, and their band of monstrous allies as they deal with aliens, mobsters, and, of course, creatures of the night. For Sinister Path, a new band of elder Nocturnals emerge in the Children of the Judge, a malevolent mirror version of Horror’s group, as Eve is haunted by alien spirits in her dreams terrorizing her from the nether realm. First published in 1994, the Nocturnals have become the greatest work produced yet by painter and writer Dan Brereton, also known for his work on Batman: Thrillkiller, Superman and Batman: Legends of the World’s Finest, and JLA: Seven Caskets. Sinister Path will see the return of favorites like Polychrome, Starfish, Firelion, and the Raccoon as well as the addition of Jammybottoms, another doll in Eve’s menagerie of possessed poppets linked to the phantasms that now stalk her.
The Kickstarter following meeting its goal of raising $30,000 is set to see publication of Nocturnals: The Sinister Path in Fall 2015 with a projected sixty-four page original graphic novel. Thus far, the story has been plotted and written with twelve pages already produced. After just two days of going live, the campaign is already over 90% funded with pledge levels ranging from $5 for a PDF copy of the OGN up to $7,000 with a hardcover expanded edition of the book along with the original art used for the book’s wraparound cover. However, the highest pledge has already been secured as well as several of the other high end pledges that include original sketches and art by Dan Brereton. As of this writing, pledges at the $925, $750, $725, and $500 levels yet remain. If you’re a fan of Brereton and/or the Nocturnals, you should consider your available pledge level sooner rather than later. To learn more about the Nocturnals, you can go to their website at Nocturnals.com and the Kickstarter can be found here.
