Q&A: Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon Discuss Teaming Up for Their Illustrated Folk Horror Novella FESTIVAL

Two of the most exciting and prolific horror authors working today, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to tap into the music-infused vein of folk horror in their new novella Festival. Featuring illustrations by Peter Bergting, the horror novella Festival will be released in comic book shops on October 12th by Dark Horse Comics, and we caught up with Golden and Lebbon in a new Q&A feature to discuss their latest collaboration!

Thanks for taking the time to talk with Daily Dead! Can you tell us how you two came together and decided to team up on Festival?

Christopher Golden: Tim and I have collaborated many times over the years, but Festival does come from a particular inspiration. We’re both huge fans of English post-punk rocker Frank Turner and have read his memoir The Road Beneath My Feet, in which Frank tells a story about being late for a music festival where he was meant to perform. A cab dropped him off in the middle of nowhere and he thought the driver must have just abandoned him in the middle of the English countryside. But the driver had pointed over a hill and told him to go that way and when he finally crested the hill, the festival was there. They had just come at it from another approach. Still, it felt mystical to both of us, reading that, almost as if Frank were about to step into a fairy tale. That one anecdote has inspired several possible future projects from us, but it also sparked the idea for this novella, which features both a character inspired by that story, and Frank Turner himself in a supporting role. We have ideas for several other novellas in the future, but some of those are more dark fantasy, and this one is very definitely a folk horror story.

Tim Lebbon: Chris has got our collaboration on Festival covered perfectly! But a deeper history of how and why we've been working together over the years—I first got to know Chris when he asked me to write a Hellboy short story for him for an anthology he was editing, and soon after that a full-length Hellboy novel for a line he was editing at Simon & Schuster. Chris and I hit it off, and I think from that moment on it was inevitable that we'd end up collaborating, especially as we both work on multiple projects, in different media, at the same time. Our first collaboration was the novel Mind The Gap, and since then we've written seven more novels together, a screenplay for Fox, some novellas and short stories, TV pitches, and we've just embarked on our first joint comic book (my first!). Chris is one of my greatest friends, and it's always a pleasure when we get to work together. Festival was no exception, and add in our love of music and it was a dream job. It was also heavily influenced by a walk we took several years ago in the Wye Valley in the UK, when we really did come across an ancient oak like that in the story. We only walked around it once...

What was the creative process for working together to tell this story?

Christopher Golden: We’re very comfortable working together from a loose outline. We talk about the story in depth, agree on the plot, and then one of us will start. One will write a couple of scenes and send it to the other, who’ll revise and then we get on Skype or Zoom and talk about what’s next. We sort of bat it back and forth to each other, talking in between each new section, until we’re done.

Tim Lebbon: Absolutely, and it's really important to be comfortable with each other so we can say if something does or doesn't work. To be honest, though, it usually does. Wth novels we tend to go chapter by chapter, but with Festival I think we went scene by scene based on the varying points of view. Then we rewrite so that the tone and voice sort of flow, and it's great to see a distinct, unique voice emerging from our own quite different styles.

I really enjoyed Peter Bergting and felt like it gave this story another layer of depth to bring this world to life. Did you two know that you were going to have Peter involved from the start? If not, what made you decide to include illustrations within the story and what did that creative process look like?

Christopher Golden: We had Peter in mind from the start. I’ve worked with Peter for many years—probably he’s the artist I’ve worked with more than any other, on comics as well as on covers for my novels. He’s also Swedish, which helps when you’re writing a story loaded with Viking ghosts. We wanted something that would be creepy and horrific but would also have an unsettling, eerie quality, and we knew illustrations would help to set the tone for the work. Peter and I have talked for a long time about me writing something original for him, or rather based on something he wants to illustrate. We haven’t gotten around to that yet, but this seemed a step in the right direction.

Tim Lebbon: Peter's work is just amazing, and he was wonderful to collaborate with. He was our first choice, without a doubt. We're very lucky to have worked with him, and I'm looking forward to working with him again some more. Such a nice guy and an incredible artist. His artwork elevates the story, and that cover!

Did you two draw upon any real-world festival experiences when telling this story?

Christopher Golden: I’m envious of Tim, because the UK’s festival scene is far more vibrant and culturally entrenched than it is here in the US. That said, one of my greatest concert experiences ever was at about 14 years old, when I saw The Outlaws, The Gregg Allman Band, The Joe Perry Project, and other acts outside at the Westboro Speedway in Westboro, Massachusetts. I saw a lot of others back in those days. Probably the last great one I attended was the Lilith Fair revival in 2010. Someday I hope to get to Glastonbury.

Tim Lebbon: I'll admit, I've only been to a few, and most of those were back in my late teens when I went to loads of heavy metal gigs, seeing bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Ozzy, and Motorhead in muddy fields with startlingly horrific toilet amenities. Great memories. Lately I've been to the more sedate Green Man festival in South Wales, which is as much about the quality food and local beers as it is the music, and this is definitely where I drew inspiration for Festival. As an experience, Green Man is almost comfortable, and it takes place in a similar mythic landscape as our fictional Festival.

What songs would you suggest to our readers that want to have a playlist to accompany their read-through of Festival?

Christopher Golden: There are a lot of artists who appear in Festival, but for me, the two that represent the pendulum of music at the Valhalla Music Festival are Frank Turner and Billie Eilish. As for a playlist…Tim, we really ought to do one. What I do know is that it would have some ghostly English folk songs on it, like the ones that inspired Frank Turner’s “English Curse."

Tim Lebbon: Frank Turner's album England Keep My Bones is a perfect accompaniment to this novella. And yes, we should create a playlist that would guide people through the thrills, chills, and spills of Festival.

Aside from Festival, what other projects do you have coming up that you'd like to tell our readers about?

Christopher Golden: My new novel All Hallows will be out in January, just two weeks after the paperback of my most recent, Road of Bones. in comics, I’m currently working on Hellboy in Love and Frankenstein: New World, both for Dark Horse. And Tim and I are doing a new comics project together, but we can’t announce it yet!

Tim Lebbon: My new novel The Last Storm is out now from Titan. I'm working on a really exciting project with Audible which isn't announced yet (watch this space), and I'm part of the team writing and creating the huge new computer game Resurgence. I'm also writing a new novel which isn't out til January 2024. I have a new novella, The Last Day And The First, from PS Publishing soon, and I'm also developing a couple of screenplay projects. And the comic Chris mentioned!

With Halloween nearly upon us, what's your horror movie recommendation for our readers?

Christopher Golden: Oh, god, so many. Hundreds. But at Halloween time, I nearly always watch John Carpenter’s three greatest films, Halloween, The Fog, and my favorite horror film ever, The Thing. I watch a lot of the classics from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, but of more modern horror, my favorites are The Descent and The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

Tim Lebbon: I've just watched The Thing again, and it's one of my favourites too! Along with Jacob's Ladder and The Haunting, perfect Halloween viewing. Session 9 is spooky as hell, and for a movie where the monster reveal is satisfying and terrifying, you can't beat The Ritual.

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To learn more about Festival, visit Dark Horse Comics, and check out the official release details and artwork by Peter Bergting:

Synopsis: "The Valhalla music festival commemorates a long-ago Viking slaughter, but when strange things start to happen, it seems the massacre may be far from over. When festival-goers begin to disappear, and musicians find themselves playing mysterious and ancient songs as if possessed, the fans have to figure out what is going on before the festival site's haunting past comes back for blood.

New York Times bestselling horror writers Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon create a music festival to die for in this illustrated novel with artwork by Peter Bergting!"