Vertigo Entertainment and AWA Launch FUTURE OF FEAR Franchise With LOOK OUT

By William Earl, Variety

Dan Baillie wrote the comic as his debut project. How did you know he’d be able to take on such a big opportunity as his debut?

The origin of the story is really fascinating. Dan is a cop in Glasgow who posted a story on Reddit that caught the attention of Roy Lee and his team. When Roy and AWA partnered together to do “Future of Fear,” they showed us that story immediately, and I loved it. So we decided very quickly that we wanted to do it. That said, because of the depth of the story and the details, we realized we wanted to do it as illustrated prose as opposed to a comic book. Now this is not the story in Reddit. It’s been edited and changed for the better into a whole new story. And so we published it as prose with around 40 or 50 illustrations.

Partnering with Vertigo is opening up the pipeline to create film or TV adaptations. Have those discussions come up yet for “Look Out”?

My role as an editor is to make a good graphic novel, create a good story. That said, you never go into this saying to yourself, “I hope no one adapts it.” You always understand that a good story is a good story. A good story can be adapted, whether it’s a short story, a poem, a haiku, or something else, into other media. So the foundation is amazing, it’s a great atmosphere and the threat of this very lonely environment.

For horror fans, are there movies that share a similar vibe to “Look Out”?

It has the feel of something like “Midsommar.” It’s a creepy psychological thriller in a very controlled environment, just seeping with dread. It’s more of a small, insular psychological horror story about a young man who’s divorced and looking for a change, so he takes a job at an outpost in the woods. It’s a very lonely position on the lookout tower on a hill in the middle of nowhere. When he gets there, he finds a sheet of paper that outlines a bunch of rules to survive his experience. He assumes he’s being hazed by the other rangers, but it turns out that the sheet of paper is no joke. It’s about loneliness, claustrophobia and paranoia.

Going forward, will “Future of Fear” stories be totally different in presentation, tone and themes?

They’re all over the map. There’s no redundancy at all to be found in these stories.

See some of the non-finalized page concepts from “Look Out” below.