Q&A: Writer Steve Orlando Explores His “Strangest, Most Provocative Ideas” in HELLO DARKNESS: GOOD BONES & OTHER SORDID TALES #1, Coming This February from BOOM! Studios

Since the publication of "The Foster," bestselling writer Steve Orlando has thrilled and chilled readers of the horror anthology series Hello Darkness, and now BOOM! Studios is collecting Steve's shocking and timely stories in the one-shot Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales #1, featuring the new story "Good Bones" written by Orlando and illustrated by Dillon Snook, as well as Orlando's previous collaborations with artists Federico Sorressa, Adam Gorham, and A.L. Kaplan, respectively.

Ahead of the February 11th release of Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales #1, Daily Dead had the pleasure of catching up with Steve in a new Q&A feature to discuss getting the opportunity to explore the world of horror, collaborating with BOOM! Studios to bring his "strangest, most provocative ideas" to life, and how he came up with the concept for his new story "Good Bones."

You can read our full Q&A with Steve below, and we also have a look at preview pages from the story "Good Bones," as well as the main cover art by Rebeca Puebla and variant covers by Isaac Goodhart and Liana Kangas, respectively.

To keep up to date on Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales #1 as well as other exciting releases, be sure to visit:

• https://www.boom-studios.com/

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions for us, Steve, and congratulations on Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales! What was your reaction when you found out that BOOM! Studios would be collecting your stories from the HelloDarknessanthology series in a new one-shot?

Steve Orlando: Shock! There’s no other way to say it. I’m generally the capes and wonder guy, maybe the sex and violence guy—but horror is a world I hadn’t explored more. So, each of the shorts I was offered was a pinch-me moment, and I was happy to “yes and” it as long as BOOM! wanted me at the dance. But I never expected getting a focused one-shot, I never expected this all to take on a life and death of its own. And yet here I am, like Charlie Bucket, not complaining and happy to be here! 

You’ve been a part of the journey of Hello Darkness from the very beginning with your story “The Foster.” What has it been like to work with the team at BOOM! Studios on this beloved anthology series and your new collection?

Steve Orlando: Surreal, to say the least—like I said, I never thought of myself as a horror guy. There are other, spookier Steves in the comics game for that. However, I’m also someone who tries not to repeat themselves and who always tries to do projects folks wouldn’t expect from me—hell, it’s why I worked on Grumpy Cat. So, it often still feels like I’m wearing someone else’s shoes—but they’re also shoes that fit surprisingly well! There’s an energy there, a feeling like you’re getting away with something, that’s really electric—of course, if anyone’s actually getting away with anything, it’s me and BOOM! both. These are shorts I’m incredibly proud of! Odes to creators I consider pillars of my life—all told through a horror lens. And in many cases, they’re stories I thought might end up in my potter’s field of darlings, simply because of how I’m seen in the genre game. But BOOM! saw more, and I’m very happy they did.

You mentioned that prior to writing stories for Hello Darkness, you dipped your toe “into horror a bit but never took the dive.” Has your approach to horror storytelling changed over the course of writing these tales for Hello Darkness? Are you now more comfortable dreaming up new nightmares on the paneled page?

Steve Orlando: It has not! But I think that’s because, in my case, BOOM! has been supportive from the start of my strangest, most provocative ideas. In every case, they’ve picked the wildest swing—so now, if anything, I’ve got to try to go wilder. The approach has always been to pitch and tell not just the stories I think the world needs, but the ones I almost can’t believe I’d be getting to tell. That’s how each of these shorts have ended up being stories I’m deeply proud of—each one feels like skipping school and having a blast.

I really enjoyed “Good Bones,” your new story that’s included in Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales, which shows what happens when an exploitative real-estate personality disrespects the history of a sacred place that he’s renovating. When and how did you initially come up with the idea for “Good Bones”?

Steve Orlando: The core concept has been something on my idea board for a while—I used to work in wine and spirits service, delivering up and down the Hudson Valley, and I saw the creep of gentrification on a daily basis. But I’ve also seen in general what happens when we forget our history, when we don’t honor the struggles of the past—and that goes for folks both within a given community and without. If we don’t honor our history, it’ll come back to haunt us—I’ve seen that play out in many ways over the past four decades, and it’s a thrill to finally be able to explore the idea in a nice little grotesque way.

When you sit down to write a short comic book story such as “The Foster” or “Good Bones,” approximately how long does it take you to write the first draft, and how many drafts do you typically go through before you send it to the artist or editorial team?

Steve Orlando: So, I was taught the craft by someone who made it quite clear that while comics is a dream job, it’s still a job—and who was also quite clear that writer's block didn’t exist, except in the minds of people who weren’t ready for professional work. It was a lot for a 12-year-old to hear! But I took it to heart. What that means is: the outlining, the crafting of the story, that can take any amount of time… a day, a few hours, that can depend on inspiration, etc. But once the story is molded, you sit down and do the work. So, in general, I block ten pages a day and then dialogue ten pages a day and revise—that’s what I do every day. In this case, that makes the execution of this story a two-day job. But the outlining can be longer, that’s where the romanticization of the job comes in. As far as how many drafts, that would be telling! But the folks at BOOM! have always been very respectful of our time as creatives—never any more revisions than are needed.

You’ve worked with a lot of talented artists on your Hello Darkness stories, including Dillon Snook, who illustrates “Good Bones.” What is it about Dillon’s visual style that made him the perfect fit to help bring “Good Bones” to life?

Steve Orlando: Dillon, to me, is a master of the game—his characters act, they emote, they have ulterior motives and interior lives. Everyone I’ve worked with in Hello Darkness has been a perfect fit for their story and what it needs to accomplish—sometimes that’s electric video game action, sometimes it's Gogol-inspired strangeness. With Dillon, he knows expressions, he knows how to have a character say one thing and mean another. For a story starring a cursed snake oil salesman, there’s no one better.

Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales features an eye-catching, in-your-face cover by Rebeca Puebla, as well as awesome variant covers by Isaac Goodhart and Liana Kangas, respectively. What was your reaction to seeing the cover art for your new collection for the first time (and do you have it framed on your wall yet)?

Steve Orlando: I couldn’t be luckier! Rebeca has crafted something that recalls the horror magazines I used to pick up in back issue bins all across Upstate New York when I was a kid. And the work has the allure of the tabloids I wasn’t allowed to buy during that era, too—and I think that’s perfect! Horror should always feel a little taboo. As for Isaac and Liana, these are two personal friends with deep roots in horror, so to have them covering a focused one-shot collecting stories I’ve worked on felt like a nod from fate.

In the terrifying tradition of tales from horror anthologies such as Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, there’s a satisfying sense of “just desserts” in your stories that comes back to haunt characters who are ignorant and don’t learn from their mistakes and harmful actions, which are often reflections of problems existing in our everyday lives. How important is it for you to explore real-life issues in your stories while also thrilling and chilling readers?

Steve Orlando: It’s very important! But also, I think it’s incumbent on me and any creator—if we don’t have anything to say, if we aren’t saying something only we can… why us? Comics are more expensive than ever—if folks show up for our work, it’s incumbent on us to give them their money’s worth. Give them something fun, scary, and provocative—and that means having something to say. Now, that doesn’t mean it has to be a polemic. But there’s a long history of such things in horror, even in things like the slasher subgenre. So we’re getting on board that train, but we’re riding as only we can. From Thinner to Get Out to Friday the 13th, there’s always more to say.

Do you have any favorite horror or sci-fi short stories or episodes from anthologies that have stuck with you over the years and made you want to catch that same “lightning in a bottle” feeling through your own work?

Steve Orlando: There will never be another first answer for me besides The Spectre by Ostrander and Mandrake—I love it as a kid, and am currently rereading the omnibus now, and it remains raw, shocking, thought-provoking, and daring even today. John and Tom did some of the best work of the 1990s there—and while they’re not unsung creators, they should be sung at a much louder volume. The complicated evils, the bold concepts, and the sheer intensity of the imagery is lightning I’ve been racing behind my whole career—and behind which I’ll happily sprint forever.

Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales?

Steve Orlando: Hopefully, some new ideas or new perspectives—even if it’s on something they’ve already got ideas and perspectives about. Hell, perhaps even more so. The goal above all is to entertain! But if that entertainment doesn’t have real themes behind it, it’s candy, it’s empty calories. To be clear, some candy can be awesome. But horror, when it works best to me, as I hope these stories do… is a whole meal with leftovers.

In addition to the chilling stories included in Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales, do you have plenty of future frights and eerie ideas that you’d still like to bring to life within the pages of upcoming Hello Darkness releases?

Steve Orlando: Oh, there are always more! The world is always changing—and every time that prism turns, the light that’s shot out the other side changes too. So, even these four stories, told next year or in a few years, wouldn’t be the same. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking to retread old ground—it means there are always new ideas. I keep a whiteboard and journal with concepts, one is always nearby—and when something comes, even if I don’t know what it is yet, I write it down. An active mind, in this case, is a blessing—it’s almost impossible for me to single task and not find inspiration within about 20 minutes or a half hour, drawn from some kernel in what I’m taking in.

What advice would you give to comic book writers who are just getting started?

Steve Orlando: Start making comics—and finish them. If you’re able to finish a short, you’re already ahead of 99% of the other people trying to break in. And don’t be overwhelmed by the blank page—my mentor told me to write every day starting from when we met when I was 12. He told me to write every day because if I didn’t treat this like a job, it would never be one. So, come up with a short, find artistic collaborators, craft the short and publish it, even if it’s just an ashcan. Bring that to shows, get feedback from editors and creators you respect, listen to the feedback and improve you work, and repeat—that’s how I did it for almost twenty years, until the door finally opened.

With Hello Darkness: Good Bones & Other Sordid Tales haunting shelves February 11th from BOOM! Studios, what other projects do you have coming up that you can tease for our readers?

Steve Orlando: I’ll be busy! We’ve got the Ripperland collection out from Dark Horse, we’ve got Magical Mysteries of Shazam ongoing on the DC GO! app. We’ve got The End: 2099 and Sorcerer Supreme at Marvel, never mind my return to Wonder Woman with the Black and Gold special for 2026! You’ll see multiple releases from Gungnir Books, which I co-founded with Matt Medneay and Jim Krueger. And you’ll see more X-O Manowar from Valiant as well as Tarzan Beyond from Alien Books! And you know what? Even more than that! But that’d be telling.

Thank you very much for your time, Steve!

Steve Orlando: Happy to!

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From the Press Release: From the vaults of BOOM! Studios’ acclaimed horror anthology Hello Darkness comes a curated collection overflowing with grimy, gritty, and gory grotesqueries by bestselling writer Steve Orlando and a certifiable rogue’s gallery of incredible artists in the new special one-shot HELLO DARKNESS: GOOD BONES AND OTHER SORDID TALES #1.

“When BOOM! first reached out about being part of Hello Darkness, it was the exact kind of surprise I needed—the kind that kicks you in the ass,” said writer Steve Orlando. “I’d dipped my toe into horror a bit but never took the dive. When they believed in a strange story like ‘The Foster’, it was too good to be true. And then the call came again and again, I was knocking on all the wood I could find—luckily, I have pine floors. So now, to be honored with a Hello Darkness one-shot and debut a new story with ‘Good Bones’? It’s the best kind of hallucination made real. These are stories I care about—inspired by creators like Gogol, Carpenter, Bulgakov, and Cronenburg! I am so proud of the work in this book, built with an incredible cadre of the dream artistic collaborators—and I can’t wait for you folks to see it all in one place!”

Featuring familiar stories, as well as a brand-new terror in “Good Bones” illustrated by the up-and-coming Dillon Snook.

HELLO DARKNESS: GOOD BONES AND OTHER SORDID TALES #1 will be available in comic shops February 11, 2026. It is available for pre-order at your local comic shop. Digital copies can be purchased from content providers, including iBooks, Google Play, and Kindle.

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