The italian publishing house ReNoir Comics brought Tyler Crook, an American comic book artist with a highly recognizable style, to Lucca Comics 2025 as a guest. His realistic style is enhanced by watercolor coloring. After working in the Hellboy universe on the B.R.P.D. series, Crook formed an artistic partnership with writer Cullen Bunn, creating the horror saga Harrow County, an international success that has also been published in Italy.
We had the opportunity to interview the author, talking about his artistic inspirations, his preference for horror and weird genres, and his work as sole author on The Lonesome Hunters, now in its second volume in Italy.
Hi Tyler, and thanks for your time.
I’d like to start with your beginnings in comics, given that your career path is unique: you worked in the video game industry for more than 10 years before moving on to comics. How did this transition happen and what led you from one world to the other? Also, what did you bring with you from your previous work?
I think the main reason why I wanted to make comic books after video games was that the video game industry was terrible to work in. I had many good friends, I’ve had many wonderful experiences, but it was just too much work, too much crunch, too much bad management. There’s a lot of problems in the video game industry; in the comic books, I’m at home with my wife and my cat and it’s nice. It’s relaxing. I’m working on things that I’m more passionate about. With the video games, I worked on American football games and American baseball games, so not fun, adventure, horror games like I would want to work on. It was all just sports games. So when I got to do comics, I got to work on projects that I cared about, that I felt really emotionally invested in. So that was sort of the big change. You know, I don’t make nearly as much money in comics as I did in video games, but I feel much better every day. It’s important, yeah, it’s really important. My life is better.
Which comics and artists inspired your career?
One of the big ones for me was John Byrne’s Alpha Flight, which was not very popular, but for me, it was the one. And it was because when I went into the grocery store, there was Alpha Flight’s first issue. And you know, Captain America, Batman, they were on issue 400, but I could start with Alpha Flight. So I got very invested in that. And then Mike Mignola, about the same time, had his Rocket Raccoon book came out, which I think was his first book. And I was over the moon for that. And then I got more into like Paul Pope, and I got into more sort of independent stuff, you know, a lot of very small editors. As soon as I started going to conventions, and I could buy books from the authors, then I started to get into more like small people making zines and, you know, xeroxed comics. That was sort of what I was into for a long time.
One of the works most closely associated with your name is B.P.R.D., on which you worked together with Mike Mignola and John Arcudi: how did you join the team and what was it like for you to work in the Hellboy universe, which has so many fans all over the world? Were you a fan too?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, like most people grow up they want to draw Batman, or they want to draw Spider-Man. And B.P.R.D. was the only sort of not really superhero, but like a book that I was like, I want to draw those characters. And I got to do it right off the bat, which was very strange, you know. And I still don’t really understand how that happened. I met Mike Mignola at a convention, and I showed him my portfolio. And he liked it and he gave me his card. And I would email him every six months or every year and be like, hi, hello, you know, just remember that I’m still alive. And then when Guy Davis left the book, they said they just called me straight. They said, let’s get this Tyler guy. And I learned so much working on B.P.R.D., because I was still very fresh. I didn’t know a lot of the finer points of good comic book storytelling. And I would get so many notes, I would have to just go lay down, it was too much. So I learned a lot. It was very challenging and difficult book to work on. But I’ve learned a lot. And I’m very grateful for it.
Another fundamental collaboration is the one with Cullen Bunn, with whom you have been working almost non-stop since your debut in 2011, when, after Petrograd, you worked on some issues of The Sixth Gun. Since then, you have been a regular working partnership: what created this strong bond and how do you work together?
I think we bonded just because we both have a love for horror. But we also want stories that are very grounded in a human experience, I want to have characters that are meaningful to people. So that was where we first bound, found our synchronicity or whatever you want to call it. And then when there was a point where I didn’t have a book to do, and I was talking to one of my publishers, Dark Horse, and to my editor Daniel Chabon, and I asked him what does he want me to work on, he said to pitch him a story. So I called up Cullen, and I said, let’s pitch something. He had tried writing Harrow County as a novel and he sort of told me the story about it a little bit. And I was just excited to do it. At the time, when I started Harrow County, I had just moved to Oregon, which, if you don’t know, is on the West Coast of the United States. And it’s big trees, lots of forests. And I was just going crazy for forests. And Cullen said that Harrow County takes place out in the woods. And I want to do that. I want to draw forests. And the two of us trust each other a lot. So sometimes he’ll tell me what the story will be. But sometimes he won’t. And I just sort of trust that when it comes in, it’ll be, it’ll be good.
Harrow County is one of the most successful horror comics of recent years, receiving nominations for the Eisner and Bram Stoker awards and being adapted into many different formats. First of all, we would like to know where the idea for this story came from and how you developed that world.
Well, I think the original idea was based on the fact that Cullen Bun grew up in North Carolina. And my wife is from North Carolina, too. And they like the folk tales, especially scary folk tales. And so I think that that was sort of the spark for the story. It was just like all of the monsters and tales that they talk about in the woods. And let’s make a story about them. And so I think that was where Cullen first got the idea. I think what I really brought to it was when he told me about it, it was originally set in modern times. And I said, no, no, no, we have to set it in the 30s and the 40s. So it feels more like an old story and not not so like contemporary.
Did you expect this success? It seems that, in general, it is a great time for horror comics, of which Bunn is one of the leading writers, given that after superheroes it is by far the most popular comic genre in the indie and mainstream market. Why do you think there is so much interest in the genre at this point in history?
Well, was I surprised? Yes. I never expect anything to do well. I always go in thinking it’s going to be this will be my last optimistic. But I think horror is doing so well, I think a lot of people who were raised on superhero books are now old enough that they want something a little more engaging, a little more diverse to read. And I think horror is one of those genres that is more flexible than superhero or romance or any other genre. Horror can be a lot of different things. Horror can be David Lynch. It can be Michael Myers. It can be Midsommar or whatever. It can be all these different kinds of stories. So it’s a way of having something that still feels very much like a comic book. But you can tell lots of different kinds of stories.
The Lonesome Hunters sees you as the sole author of the texts and illustrations. It is a fantastic story, balanced between weird and horror, but also and above all the story of characters who live on the margins, even of their own existences, and who face not only monsters but also the obligations of their respective responsibilities. Where did the inspiration for this story come from?
It came from a lot of places. Much of the story is me trying to find a way to take all of my anxieties and put them in a story. But a big inspiration, and part of the title from the book, came from a novel by Carson McCullers called The heart is a lonesome hunter, beautiful novela ns one of my favorites. And the thing about that book that really struck me was just every single character was desolately lonely, and was unable to connect. And I wanted to make a story that was sort of about that kind of loneliness, but instead finding two people who did connect, and find their way through this trauma. And then weird monsters, because I wanted to find them too!
The atmosphere, both from a narrative and aesthetic point of view, plays a fundamental role, with this constant liminal sensation that gravitates over the pages. What were your thoughts when working on this atmosphere, and what influences inspired you to give the sword and figures such as the Queen of the magpies their appearance? Did you do any iconographic research, taking inspiration from anything in particular?
Yeah, I did take a lot of inspiration from just studying Native American religion and Indian culture, sorts of things. And the idea for a lot of the monsters, for the Magpie Queen and the Wolf Child, is that they both wear those wooden masks that are supposed to be thousands of years old. They’ve had these masks. So that was sort of the inspiration for the design of them. But then trying to find a way for those creatures to sort of inhabit our modern age, and how they would live. They’re animals. It’s like a wolf and a bird. How do they live in the urban culture, where it’s like the animals have to live in these small pockets of trees, or in the abandoned house, stuff like that.
The focus of The Lonesome Hunters is on the two main characters, Lupe and Howard: the first is a young girl who grew up very quickly due to her losses, while the second seems trapped in a childish dynamic, due to his traumas and the weight of the responsibilities we mentioned earlier. There seems to be a constant exchange of roles between adults and children, protector and protected. How did you work on the characters and their relationship, and how did you come up with such a strange pair for a supernatural adventure?
The original idea for the characters was based on exploring ideas of generational trauma. I was originally thinking about my grandfather. He was born in 1911. I think he had three brothers and sisters who died as children. When he was 11, his parents lived in Utah, in the United States, and they moved to Mexico. My grandfather ran away from home. He didn’t want to go to Mexico. The rest of the family just went. I was thinking a lot about him. He would never say he was traumatized as a child, but he was traumatized as a child. So I was thinking a lot of that. I wanted in Howard, this character who was traumatized by generations of people who never addressed their trauma. He is the end of the line of this trauma. And then I wanted a character that would contrast with Howard. So finding someone who was young and was sort of like… Lupe is sort of the beginning of a trauma. Her family was sort of happy and healthy, and then there was traumatic stuff that happened to her. So every time I think of like, okay, one character has one thing, I think of like, well, how would that be the opposite? And I try to put them together. And so that gives them a way when they face a problem, they have different ways of coming at the problem and trying to solve it.
Out of Alcatraz, released in the US by Oni Press and still unpublished in italy, saw you working with Christopher Cantwell on a noir that, based on the true story of the 1962 escape of three prisoners from the prison island, unfolds into a story driven by the main characters, their relationships, and their interactions. How did this comic come about and how did you find yourself illustrating not only the more action-packed sequences but also those in which the dialogues—all of which are very effective and realistic, by the way—dominated?
Well, that book came about because Chris Cantwell had worked on it for a long time. I think he started working on it as a screenplay for television about maybe five or six years ago and had no luck sort of getting it done that way. And he showed it to our editor, Bess Palares at Oni Press, and she loved it. And they sent it to me and I read it. When I got it, it was a screenplay for television. And usually when I get that, my eyes roll back in my head. I’m like, oh, another one of these. They don’t want to make comics, they want to make TV. But I read it and I thought it was really good. I could understand it. The thing that appealed to me about Out of Alcatraz is that it has these cast of characters, and every single one of them has the same problem. They’re trying to find a way to be free. And they all have their own reasons why. Most of them, the reason they don’t get free is because of themselves. Others, the reason they don’t get free is because of the society that they’re in. And there was a very interesting exploration of freedom that I could see even in the television screenplay. And I had read Chris’s work a little bit, and I knew he understood comic books. So I was like, let’s do this. And I think the thing that I always like about comic books is not necessarily the big action, exciting things. I really like to focus on character acting and try to really find a way for the reader to connect with the characters in a way that they don’t have to work. The reader can just see it and be like, oh, I know what this character is feeling. And Out of Alcatraz was perfect for that. It’s a very good option.
Thank you very much, Tyler!
My pleasure. Thank you very much. You are very kind.
Interview recorded live at Lucca Comics on October 30, 2025
Tyler Crook
Tyler Crook is an American comic book artist and writer. After more than a decade working in the video game industry, he transitioned to comics in 2011 with his first book, Petrograd, which earned him a Russ Manning Award for Best Newcomer. Since then, he has worked on series such as The Sixth Gun, B.P.R.D., Witchfinder, Black Hammer, and most notably Harrow County, which received an Eisner Award nomination. In 2022, the first chapter of The Lonesome Hunters, the first comic book series written and illustrated entirely by him, was released. He has won two Ghastly Awards and a Bram Stoker Award for his work and has been nominated several times for Eisner Awards. His comic book panels are notable for their rich watercolor and ink coloring and the intense emotionality of the characters. He lives in the depths of Oregon with his beautiful wife Ma’at.
