The Ferryman Travels from Dark Castle to WildStorm

Posted by bob in Comics, News on August 13th, 2008

WildStorm will release The Ferryman on October 8, a five-issue miniseries coming from Dark Castle.  The project is being written by Marc Andreyko (Friday the 13th: Pamela’s Tale) and drawn by Jonathan Wayshack.  “It’s been a great working with Jon,” Andreyko said of his collaborator. “When I look at the pages, I’m like ‘Oh my God, this is awesome!’ He just took my words and brought them to vivid life, which I’m just thrilled with. The book will sell because of the art; it just draws you into this world.

“Dark Castle generated the idea,” Andreyko told ShockTillYouDrop.com. “I’ve known Erik Olsen and Joel’s company for years. Joel [Silver] had been interested in the concept of the Ferryman and the River Styx. He wanted to do something contemporary with it, so that’s what I was given. From there, I brought to the table people selling their soul to the Devil. Eventually the Devil is going to collect on that so the Ferrymen carry the souls to hell.”

The series’ protagonist is Gideon Thorne, known as a tracker or “Ferryman”, ” a cop who, in the ’70s, lost his wife to a serial killer,” Andreyko said. “He winds up killing the serial killer in court and killing himself. In the morgue, the Devil says, ‘you’re good at your job so if you work for me you’ll see your wife one more time’.”

As the series open, Thorne tells the Devil he’s done and the Devil agrees but says, just take on one more job.

Dark Castle was originally founded by producers Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gil Adler to produce modern day remakes of the oeuvre of  the legendary William Castle. This began with House on Haunted Hill but in time, they began producing original works as well. Now Dark Castle is branching out into comics as well.

“There are definite thoughts that this would be cool to live on in other media,” Andreyko confirmed of Dark Castle’s intent. “I’m writing it as a comic book story though. They say, Don’t write what you think is commercial, right what you feel. So I’m writing the story in the confines of a comic book with the pluses of a comic book. That being said, it could easily be translated into film, but I’m not doing this to make it into a movie.”