Sometimes good police work just isn’t enough, as Inspector Thomas Adye of Scotland Yard finds out when he’s assigned to the Jack the Ripper case. He’ll need the guidance of imprisoned madman and amoral libertine, Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose mind-splitting serum Jack might be using to commit his bloody murders. Written by Cole Haddon and illustrated by M.S. Corley, part 1 of The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde sets in motion events that will pit London’s two greatest monsters against one another. Will Adye--and his soul--survive intact?

We caught up with writer, Cole Haddon, to talk The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde.

Horror News Network: How did you come up with the concept for this comic?

Cole Haddon: I’d read the Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde three or four times since I was a kid. Mr. Hyde, in fact, was and still is my favorite Victorian literary villain. So I had this fan’s need to return to that character, to pay homage to him in some way. Sounds simple enough, right? Except I’m also burned out by direct adaptations of source material. As a cinephile who watches far too many films, I’ve seen more than my share. At least a dozen Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde films, for example. Who knows how many Dracula and Frankenstein retreads through the years? If I was ever going to tackle Hyde and maybe even prove to the world that Hyde is, as I think he is, the baddest of the bad in the pantheon of classic monsters, I’d have to write a sequel that pitted him against an adversary just as intellectually and physically monstrous. That’s how I decided upon Jack the Ripper – real Victorian London’s baddest monster. My protagonist, Inspector Thomas Adye, became a conduit to explore this collision of literary horror with historical horror. The strange cases, in other words, that the world has never fully understood. I kind of think of Adye as the Fox Mulder of his times and The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde is really his first foray into the bizarre.


Horror News Network: How difficult was it to weave together the Jack the Ripper legend with elements of the classic tale of Jekyll and Hyde?

Cole Haddon: I like how you worded that question, since Jack the Ripper has actually become more legend than fact. His murders, which were all very real, have been wrapped up in myths, conspiracy theory, and class warfare for more than a century now. The result is the Ripper has become a work of nebulous fiction, open to interpretation by historians as much as Ripperologists, which made it that much easier to play around with his origin story rather than pervert the more detailed back stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.


Horror News Network: Can you give us a run-down of the main characters we will see in this book?

Cole Haddon: Well, there’s Henry Jekyll. It’s been five years since we last saw him and, thanks to much analysis – the psychiatric therapy of the day – the Dr. Jekyll persona has finally taken back control of the body it shares with Mr. Hyde. But control doesn’t necessarily mean total expulsion of that darker, id-driven side. And so Jekyll exists today as an amalgamation of the two personas – a brilliant libertine who preaches free will and choice in a society desperate to control its filthy masses. This is what makes Inspector Adye such a fascinating protégé to him. Adye is a stick-up-his-ass social conservative who’s been hard-wired to believe in a black-and-white world where morality and the social hierarchy is all divided between good and evil, between the ignoble poor and the noble wealthy. Jekyll sees in Adye what he once was: an ambitious young man who naively believes he has the power to save a world that secretly just wants him to go back to his corner and behave. The Ripper, the third main character…well, his identity is a mystery. But he’s got his own agenda, his own game he’s playing. As well as his own connection to Jekyll’s twisted past.


Horror News Network: What can we expect in terms of blood and gore from this series?

Cole Haddon: You can expect a lot of blood, that’s for sure. I’m in love with the stuff, in fact. In the proper context, there’s something just giddily fun about it. As twisted as that sounds, I think that’s the part of me speaking that loves Hammer’s Gothic horrors and Mario Bava and Dario Argento’s Italian horrors. I grew up watching the absurdly unrealistic, garish red blood they used in these films and that’s what I asked for from my colorist Jim Gibbons. It had to be the brightest thing on any page, just like it was in any frame of those films I just referenced. I remember Jim darkened some blood in one of our comic’s first scenes, because, being blood that had congealed and dried over night, it would have, accurately, been darker than I was asking for in my script. Yeah, that didn’t fly. Blood doesn’t dry to some brown-red in the world of Strange Case.


Horror News Network: What has impressed you the most with M.S. Corley’s artwork?

Cole Haddon: Is “everything” too broad of an answer? I picked Mike for this gig with the help of editor Dave Land after considering several other artists who had all illustrated some pretty amazing comic books. A few I hope I one day get to work with one something else, in fact. Mike, by contrast, had almost no comic book experience – but did have this incredibly original style that matched my stylized hopes for the comic book. He’s also just as fascinated as I am by Gothic and classic horror. It didn’t take long to realize he was the perfect fit and I haven’t regretted the decision once. That said, if I had to cite one particular aspect of his artwork that I’m most pleased by, it’s his ability to express emotions and thought in the faces of the characters. He approaches each of them rather like an actor does their roles, and I always find myself surprised, just like when I watch a great actor, by the decisions he makes.


Horror News Network: Is there a chance that we can see more of this tale after this series wraps up?

Cole Haddon: I certainly hope so, but that’s, of course, not my decision to make. Hopefully the audience is there and, if they enjoy the book, are vocal about that as well. I can say that I didn’t approach Strange Case as a stand-alone tale. I knew, if there were sequels, I’d want every mini-series to be interconnected in some way more than just Inspector Adye’s presence. Planned out, in advance, in other words. So keep an eye out for more than a few Easter Egg references to the wider world of Victorian literary horror. By the end of Issue 4, you’ll know who Adye will be facing off against next and will have some guesses about what other villains/monsters might be around the proverbial corner.


Horror News Network: How do you compare your tale, The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde to another Victorian era book out there, Victorian Undead, which features Sherlock Holmes?  

Cole Haddon: To be honest, I haven’t read it yet. I actually only just heard about it. Definitely sounds like the kind of thing I’d enjoy.


Horror News Network: Where can we find more information about The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde?

Cole Haddon: Right now, on darkhorse.com or you can follow me on Twitter at @colehaddon.


Horror News Network: In closing, what would you like to say about The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde?

Cole Haddon: I still can’t believe my first comic book is about to hit the stands. Screenwriting pays my bills, but the medium of comics has been an obsession of mine for years – as much as classic monsters have been. This isn’t a world I stepped into because I came up with a cool idea that I got lucky enough to have a publisher take seriously. It’s is a lifelong love affair for me, and I hope, at the end of the day, I did some justice to the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Maybe a few of you will even realize what I’ve always known: that Hyde is the baddest of the bad.

Horror News Network: Thank you for your time, Cole! Best of luck with this series. Comment on this interview on our forum.