Archie Comics is taking a deep dive into its IP vault for the new one-shot The Chilling Adventures Present… The Cult of That Wilkin Boy, bringing back garage band guitarist Bingo Wilkin for a classic horror tale of a musician whose thirst for fame leads him to make an ill-advised bargain. The comic is written by Cullen Bunn with art by Dan Schoening (Ghostbusters) and will be released on April 19 with a main cover by Schoening and a variant cover by Robert Hack.
That Wilkin Boy #1 came out in 1968 (cover date January 1969), just as The Archies were hitting the big time with records, a Saturday morning cartoon, and all the accoutrements of success. Meanwhile, in nearby Midvale, Bingo Wilkin led a simpler life, playing high school sports, hanging out with his girlfriend Samantha, and banging out the latest pop hits with his band The Bingoes. The series, which ran until 1982, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Riverdale comics, with a clumsy everyman in the lead and a cast of supporting characters that included cute girls and funny boys. One element that was missing was the love triangle, however: Bingo Wilkin was a one-woman man, although Samantha’s father, who despised him, wished it could be otherwise.
Bingo loses the pop vibe in the new comic, going with more of a grunge/alt rock aesthetic. “I pulled visual inspiration from bands like Weezer, Nirvana, Beck, and Green Day,” Schoening said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “With the touches of horror throughout the tale, I directed my attention towards Harry Clarke’s Faust illustrations and the phantasmic work of Hieronymus Bosch.”
“The story we’re seeing in this book is closely related to the original stories; it starts in pretty much the same place for Bingo and his friends,” Bunn said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “But I wanted to explore what might happen if the story took a dark, infernal turn, so I wove in some classic demonic folklore. What would happen if Bingo got everything he wanted, but he paid a terrible price to get there? The Bingo of this story is quite a departure–an evolution or de-evolution–of the wholesome character of yesteryear, corrupted by fame and power and guilt and jealousy. He’s achieved what he thought was impossible, but his karmic payments are coming due.”
Bunn is also heading up a new horror imprint, encompassing prose works, comics, and games, for Outland Entertainment (see “Cullen Bunn to Head Up New Horror Imprint”).
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Source: ICV2
