WELCOME, FOOLISH MORTALS, TO THE HAUNTED MANSION!
With the new Disney movie in theaters THIS WEEK, now's the perfect time to revisit my 2016 Marvel miniseries THE HAUNTED MANSION!
If you know me you know I’m obsessed with the Haunted Mansion.
It’s my favorite ride of all time. I believe it is the greatest dark ride ever made. The ride and the story of its creation have influenced a lot of my work. It’s the origin of my love of horror. The comic book GHOSTED was written while listening to the first movie’s soundtrack…
…and the classic song created by X. Atencio and Buddy Baker from inside the ride.
I literally have candles here in my office that are made to smell the inside of the ride!
And now a new movie is on it’s way this week! Is Disney paying me for this product placement? NO! Of course not! This is just me showing the love to something that means a lot to me.
Looks like a lot of fun! I hope to escape next week and see it in the theaters!
Now back to comic books!
A long time ago, in a haunted galaxy far away…I pitched Disney Publishing on doing a Haunted Mansion comic book many many times. Lots of talks. And it just never worked out. But this was a bucket list for me. I HAD to do this.
One day I was working with Marvel on some comic books and I did an online video interview with them to promote those comics. And the people in charge of the press witnessed that part of my office was FULL of stuff from the Haunted Mansion. Collectibles, statues, etc. To this day any time new merch pops in the parks I am there to buy some of it.
So at NYCC in 2015, they mentioned to me that if a Haunted Mansion comic book was ever an option at Marvel then they would put in the good word. Now this is a true story. A lot of times when you work on these kinds of projects the publishers will offer up a few creators to whoever at Disney to see who they get approval for.
BUT when The Haunted Mansion came up they had a plan to go to Disney with just my name. BUT before they could, Disney said “We want Joshua Williamson.” I was later told this never happens and it made everyone’s lives a LOT easier. Disney and Marvel both knew of my obsession and so they made the call.
I kid you not the day they called me to tell me I had the gig, I was literally in Disneyland. I was in line for Space Mountain! This story would be so much better if I was in line for the Haunted Mansion but still! So I got started. Oddly enough I found out I was writing The Flash a week later. So it was a wild week!
This mini-series has many highlights for me. I was able to work with Disney Immagineers directly to craft the story. I had an awesome creative partners with Jorge Coelho and Jean-François Beaulieu. And of course the great covers by EM Gist.
The trick was how to honor the ride but tell it’s own story. Working on major properties always come with a lot of cooks in the kitchen. But thankfully everyone that worked on this book came from a place of love. I showcased all of the characters from the Mansion, even dived into some of the lore of the ride. Like how originally there was a story about sea captain who owned the Mansion. That connected it to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. And there was talk of the ride being a water ride at one point. This was why I made our bad guy a pirate! The finished ride leaned hard away from that in the end, but I wanted to honor that part of the ride.
If you are a fan of the ride you might notice the book actually follows the same path as the ride. For the most part. The scenes revealed in the book are also revealed in the exact same order as the ride.
It was a dream come true.
In 2019 I went to Disneyland and there in the shop next to the Haunted Mansion was the hardcover collection of the comic book. On sale. I felt like I had contributed to something that had changed my life. It’s a reminded or why we do this. To stories is always our main goal but sometimes we get to add to the mythology of the things we love.
Some day I will have to do a whole post about the Lonesome Ghosts meets Haunted Mansion kids book pitch that I did that was rejected.
Now if you’ve come here because you also love The Haunted Mansion, I recommend you pick up two of my creator-owned comic book series:
GHOSTED. The new compendium that collects all 20 issues is coming out in September. The Final Order Cut-Off is August 14th! So get those pre-orders in!
DARK RIDE. The first collection is out now with the second one coming out in October.
More to come on Superman, Knight Terrors, and the one-two Duke/Cobra Commander Energon Universe punch, so make sure you're subscribed by clicking the button above to not miss a single word!
