GrymStone: Soil & Ash - An interview with Scott Alan Gregory

Two brothers on a slow road to madness. A whispering action figure who demands blood. Surreal modern Folk Horror from Summit Comics.

Winner of the Summit Comics Writer Talent Search
Adapted a lost 80s slasher screenplay into a graphic novel adaptation called RIPPED TO SHREDS

Keeping it Geekly - Hello and welcome to Keeping it Geekly. I appreciate you taking the time to swing by and chat about yourself as a creator & the work you have done. Can you tell us a bit about yourself for the readers out there that haven’t been formally introduced to you?

Scott Alan Gregory - Sure! I'm Scott, I live in Greenville, SC, with an awesome family that makes me laugh til it hurts every single day. I drive for DoorDash in between painting album covers and portrait commissions, but making comics is my first passion. I have been writing (and sometimes drawing) comic books pretty constantly since I was in elementary school. After high school, I studied screenwriting and filmmaking for the sole purpose of getting better at making comics (there were no formal comic book classes near me at the time). I tend to write more in the horror genre, but I love a good story of any kind.

KiG - I noticed when we first started setting up an interview that you adapted an 80s slasher screenplay into comic book format. I always find it really fascinating when lost media is resurrected. What led you to finding the original script, and can you tell us about the adaptation process?

SAG - So, I was watching the 80s slasher blu ray “Girls Nite Out” with the commentary on, and the historians Justin Kerswell (of The Hysteria Continues) and Amanda Reyes (of Made-for-TV Mayhem) mentioned how in 1982, 145 horror movies were announced in the trades, but only 45 had actually gotten made and released. That got me wondering about the other 100. As a die-hard 80s horror fanatic, the thought of tracking down some of those lost screenplays and adapting them into period-accurate graphic novels so that fans of the genre, like me, could in some way see “what might have been”... it was like a lightning bolt through my body. As for how it all came together, in brief, I connected with Justin Kerswell and through him I was introduced to a collector who had happened to acquire one of the most sought-after lost slasher screenplays on my list, RIPPED TO SHREDS, from a Hollywood Estate auction. Through some detective work and crazy luck, I tracked down the writer and secured permission to develop the project. I brought in artist Thiago Motta, with whom I had worked before on several projects, and we broke the script down into pages and panels, remaining almost completely faithful to the original document, making only slight adjustments in service of the format. We took pains to emulate the filmic conventions of the 1980s, keeping true to period hair styles, wardrobes, props, settings, special effects, and colors. And the best part, we got Russell Todd and Lauren-Marie Taylor from Friday the 13^th Part 2 to “star” in the book as their 1980 likenesses. It was an enormously satisfying undertaking.

KiG - Outside of RIPPED TO SHREDS, you not only won the Summit Comics Writer Talent Search, but now you will have a character in that universe with your new title, GrymStone: Soil & Ash. Can you tell us about the Talent Search and what went into creating a backstory for this character from scratch?

SAG - I had seen the Summit Writer Talent Search announcements all over Facebook. The concept was, they had designed two nameless villain characters, and so, to enter the contest, prospective writers would name them, come up with backstories, and write 2-page scripts about them. I was interested, but I put it off for weeks. Maybe fear of rejection? I don't know, I'm almost 50 and sometimes I still have the same hangups I did when I was 10. But I liked the idea I had for one of the characters, it was very weird, and I figured, nobody is going to enter anything this weird. Even if they don't choose it, maybe it will stick in their minds and they'll hit me up for something later. So, with like literal minutes to go, I wrapped up my pitch and sent it over. I named the bald, angry, dirt-encrusted villain “GrymStone.” He reminded me of an old action figure I had buried when I was a kid and miraculously found again 30-something years later. It was literally fused with earth and grime. I thought, what if this character were an action figure, like mine, that had been buried for decades and became overtaken by the earth, and what if something else, something ancient and dark, also seeped in... and brought it to life? That was the main conceit behind my pitch. A couple weeks later, Summit reached out to let me know I had been named a winner. I began developing this mini series immediately after.

KiG - GrymStone is the story of a 7-inch-tall 80s action figure that is possessed by a dark woodland entity and two brothers losing their sanity, intertwined with folk horror, human drama, and much more. Where did the inspiration for this 5-issue mini-series come from?

SAG - I had to come up with a palatable way to really dig into GrymStone's mythos. (Had to develop that mythos, too, frankly, as it was pretty wispy at first). At the same time, I wanted to keep him mysterious and to keep readers on the edge of understanding. You know, reveal things in bits and pieces; couch exposition in mounds of engaging human drama and thrilling conflict--the kinds of tools you learn about in screenwriting class. So, inspired by how the supernatural elements of folk horror tend to escalate and ignite in concert with intense interpersonal and family drama, I hit on the idea of looking in on the stories of three different troubled families across three different eras, with some aspect of GrymStone's legacy playing a role in each, whether it be a direct or only peripheral role. Through the 5-issues of Soil & Ash, we will watch two brothers in the present day struggle when their lives brush up against GrymStone shortly after he has dug his way out of the earth and is seeking to restore his power; we will visit a broken family in the 1980s and learn the origin of the action figure and how it ended up buried in the ground; and we will go back all the way to the late 1700s to witness how GrymStone's wicked spirit became trapped under the woodland floor in the first place. We wrap it up by returning to present day to see how the consequences from each of these episodes intertwine and pay off, hopefully setting the stage for further (and weirder) stories far, far into the future.

KiG - The first couple of pages set a pretty dark and “grim” setting, pun intended. Within a couple of panels, it’s clearly evident that the character we are following is troubled. Can you tell us a bit about the two brothers we follow throughout this story?

SAG - Every family relationship I write about in the three different eras of Soil & Ash draws on my own lived experience, with none more personal than the two brothers we meet in issue 1, Rye and Davide. Rye, the older brother, is bipolar schizophrenic, and though he is high-functioning and lives independently, he relies heavily on his younger brother, Davide, for transportation and other forms of support. This, in a nutshell, describes the dynamic I have with my own older brother. Many bits of conversation between Rye and Davide are actually taken from real interactions I have had with my brother. And, like my own brother, Rye is prone to intense delusional thinking and disjointed rationalization, which are at times a result of med changes and, at their worst, can lead to hospitalization. It is something I have gone through many, many times with my brother, and I try to impart some of that helplessness, frustration, and desperation in the writing.

KiG - How does GrymStone fit into the story? What can readers expect from this villain going forward within the Summit universe?

SAG - GrymStone fits into issue one as a possible delusion that Rye is experiencing. GrymStone is unwittingly summoned to Rye's basement by a convoluted series of actions and words, and promises Rye his heart's desire in exchange for a simple favor. The full details and mechanics are reserved for later on; but for now, that is all it takes to spin Rye and Davide's lives into violence and chaos.

KiG - I really can appreciate the detail in this. I look for easter eggs when reading a comic and love when a book rewards that. What went into working with illustrator Thiago Motta?

SAG - Thiago and I have been steady collaborators for almost 7 years. He has become like a brother to me. He has such an incredible understanding of story and of how the right bit of expression, body language, panel framing, etc... tells so much. He cares, a lot, about the overall impact of everything he draws. How it looks on its own, how it works on the page, how it fits into the book, how it feels on a subconscious level. He is a fantastic collaborator, he has no ego and is always open to making changes to better service the story. And you mention details--he is acutely aware of the story world and who the characters are, and he takes pains to make the art feel lived-in and interacted with by the real people he draws in them. His settings did not just appear on the page when you opened the book, they were inhabited and used long before you got here, and the people who live there have pasts and scars and carry their experiences in their postures and faces. I am very lucky to be able to make comics with someone so talented and human as Thiago.

KiG - You are currently live on Kickstarter until October 8th with GRYMSTONE #1. What are some of your favorite rewards? I felt the PAGE 1, PANEL 1 tier is a great way to dive into the script and see what went into creating the finished page.

SAG - That is a cool one, yeah! Back in my day, getting your hands on a comic script was challenging, if not impossible. Now, scripts are very easy to find online, but I still think it's a cool relic to have, and if you are an aspiring comic writer, it's very useful to compare the script to the finished page. That said, I think my favorite reward is actually the one I call “A Lapse in Reason,” which gets a backer a custom 2-page GrymStone story that they star in, drawn by Thiago, and written by me inspired by answers about themselves that they’ll provide in a post-campaign survey. The story will be published to the official Summit Substack, and backers will get both pages printed out on 11x17 poster board. As of this writing, there are still 2 left out of a limit of 3.

KiG - What social media platforms are you active on? Where can readers stay up to date with what you are creating next?

SAG - I'm on IG https://www.instagram.com/scott.alan.gregory/ and maybe, soon, I'll start on the TikToks like the cool kids.

KiG - Thank you so much for talking with me today and sending me an ARC of this issue. I would love to stay and chat, but I have a copy of GrymStone: Soil & Ash to finish

SAG - I hope you dig it, mate. Thanks for the chat.