Comic Books

Chuck Austen on the ghosts, family drama, and human suffering in ‘The Tormented’

March 21, 2024

Sometimes going into the family business can be a real headache. (See the Royal Family, apparently.) In the case of Ryan Auster, the star of the new ComiXology Originals series The Tormented, that concept is turned on its head to a truly horrifying extent.

Created by writer Chuck Austen and artist Patrick Olliffe, The Tormented follows young Mr. Auster as he reconciles with his legacy as the son of “legendary ghost hunters Vera and Adam Austerhölle.” While his parents believed that Ryan never shared their “paranormal gift,” he has since childhood — and it may have cost him dearly. Now, years after his parents’ brutal murder, Ryan is “unexpectedly and unwillingly sold as the host of a brand-new ghost hunting reality TV series.” Moody and slow-building, The Tormented is a horror comic deeply obsessed with family and lineage, our often topsy-turvy media landscape, and how you can only run so far from your nightmares.

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The Tormented #1 is out this week (March 19). In the lead-up to the debut, we got to field some questions for Austen via email. He was kind enough to discuss working with Olliffe (again), the book’s inspirations and influences, his thoughts on modern horror, and some standout moments, among other topics and tidbits.

Courtesy of ComiXology.

AIPT: What’s the elevator pitch for The Tormented?

Chuck Austen: An eclectic group of young people agree to work on what they think will be on a fake “reality TV” ghost hunting show only to be tormented by actual spirits and demons, forcing them to face their own, inner torment to save their lives.

AIPT:How does it feel to reunite after Edgeworld?

CA: It’s always a joy to work with Pat, but in a way we never divided. We were working on both Edgeworld, and Tormented at the same time. I had to put a pause on production for a while when my main source of income took a downturn with the contraction of the industry and the strikes. But Pat and I talk all the time, and I kept sending him scripts so he could work on them when he had spare time. It’s nice to have more than one thing to do with him. Now when we get ready for something fresh, we can switch to Tormented. Then back to Edgeworld. And hopefully back and forth forever (laughs).

AIPT: This book feels like Thirteen Ghosts mixed with Blair Witch and EDtv. Are there any specific inspirations and influences (visually and storyline wise)?

CA: Which Thirteen Ghosts? The original black and white with the clunky spirit glasses, and the “magic of illusion-ol?” Maybe that one. I do have a fondness for the cheesy, older stuff. And it’s funny. I never saw EDtv, but I know the plot. I should check it out. This is originally Pat’s concept, so the initial idea is his, and he trusted me not to screw it up. Foolish man. And I love research, so I watched a lot of ghost hunting shows, and movies. So there are a lot of influences, and nods to other things that he and I both love.

Courtesy of ComiXology.

Pat’s original concept centered around Adam and Cassandra, father and daughter, but I misunderstood his pitch and made it Adam and Ryan, and went darker than what he had intended. There was also a pitch at Dreamworks by a friend of mine at the time built around the Gold Key Comics character Doctor Spektor that was about him and his daughter, so we kept the different direction to avoid conflict. The main influence for me turned out to be family centered shows — like Poltergeist, Thirteen Ghosts, or The Conjuring. But I wanted the opposite of what those movies portrayed—a happy family hunting ghosts. I wanted a story about a family that gets involved with hunting ghosts that’s really messed up. Like an anti-Conjuring. Sort of a What If, where you grew up raised by a ghost hunting mom and dad that were truly awful parents. So the “horror” comes from both the human — and the inhuman side. One is easier to escape than the other. I’ll let you decide which is which.

AIPT: Ryan seems like an especially interesting character. What can you tease us about his role in this book — is he more or less in control than he might assume?

CA: Without revealing too much? He’s both in control, and out of control. Like most of us, really. He’s trying to be in control, and just when he thinks he’s got it nailed, he gets broadsided. And his dad—as messed up a father as he is—is a genius, and truly gifted in all aspects of the paranormal. So who’s ahead of whom in the mental game is always an ongoing question.

AIPT:We also have to talk about Quinn in the first issue. What can you tease about the book’s “younger brother.”

CA: Quinn is — was — the sort of quintessential little brother. A bit doted on, charming and confident, but now—of course—dead. He and Ryan have a fun relationship, but because Ryan fears forming new relationships Quinn tends to be the only “person” Ryan hangs out with. The question for Ryan is always, “Why is Quinn still hanging out with him, at all?” We always assume ghosts have unfinished business, so what is Quinn’s? But Quinn doesn’t talk, and Ryan hasn’t been able to figure him out, so instead he becomes Ryan’s only real companion, and in a way, his only real friend.

Courtesy of ComiXology.

AIPT: It’s interesting to see topics of family trauma and abuse filtered more evenly and organically into a horror story. Is this a way to extend what horror is about in trying to explore deeply human ideas?

CA: For me. Absolutely. One of my favorite lines in the first arc—and I don’t think this spoils anything—is when Ryan says, “I don’t fear the dead. I fear the living.” Stephen King made the subject potent for me in many of his books. I loved the novel It — or most of it, anyway — because of the human lives of the kids in that story. The way their own personal horrors were sometimes worse than facing a murderous clown. Beverly Marsh and her alcoholic father resonated with me more than the giant space spider. Some of that is due to my own upbringing in communities, and by parents, similar to what King writes about. But most of it is because as humans, we relate to emotional power. And what’s more primally potent than children in danger from the people who are supposed to love them the most?

So when Pat and I were looking for something we’d never seen in “horror” before, because t’s such a well-trod genre, it wasn’t easy. But because I’m not a real horror fan — I enjoy some… Stephen King, especially… and ignore a lot—I saw it from a slightly different angle than Pat. It’s our vision melded together that—I think—makes Tormented work.

AIPT: I love the art and the way it treats horror with a certain lens of authenticity and emotionality. Was that purposeful, and why tell a horror story that uses gore (at least thus far) so efficiently and sparingly?

CA: Completely purposeful. Yeah, Pat is amazing. His artistic skill is only one of the many reasons I love working with him, and he’s using a slightly rougher style in this than he’s ever used before. I think it’s fantastic. But storytelling-wise, some of his most horrific, and memorable images are Adam going after Ryan. Father versus son. Nothing paranormal about it. Just really, really powerful imagery. The gore is sparing because for us that’s not the real horror, the real torment. It’s the psychological stuff. The gore serves a purpose within the story. It’s not a reason for the story.

Courtesy of ComiXology.

AIPT: How much is the family stuff and general tension pulled from your own lives and experiences? Does horror need that deeply personal stuff to really function?

CA: Busted. I’ve seen it discussed online that I apparently outed myself as a child of abuse somewhere. Maybe because I was discussing my frustration with the handling of certain Marvel characters. Maybe Yellowjacket. Or Hulk? I don’t remember. But it’s not a secret. I was raised in a stern, sometimes violent, alcohol-fueled, priests- and nuns-centric world, and it wasn’t always good. Some of the more potent Ryan scenes are drawn from memory. Pat made them live in a way that gave me PTSD. Ryan’s therapy discussions come from a real place. Pat is healthy and normal, though. No issues for him.

AIPT: You’ve also done some writing and production for TV. Is this book at all a commentary on some of that industry?

CA: It wasn’t meant to be. But it sure crept in there. Brad speaks like producers I know. One in particular. Woody is like a DP I knew. I live in neighborhoods surrounded by friends in all aspects of the business. Eric and Julia Lewald, the X-Men producers, are two of my dearest friends. Mike Emanuel, who produced and directed Maneater with Dean Cain, is someone who tolerates my terrible poker playing. Brendan Hay, producer of Gremlins, Jim Schumann, producer of Spirit and Abominable. Adam Henry. All my friends work in animation or television of some kind, and we all work with executives, and production people, camera, and sound, and support staff. So I guess there was no avoiding it.

AIPT: What do you think this book is ultimately about? I see it a little about our weird relationship with and commodification of death.

CA: Yeah, definitely. Brad is in it for the money, and is just as happy making cooking videos as doing this with Ryan — for him it’s about the ratings and the jobs, not the content. Ghosts are just the latest fad to cash in on. But Tormented goes deeper with it. What is our fascination? Does it make money because we’re so desperate to know that we’ll watch anything… pay anything…to peek across that threshold and know? Then there’s a spiritual side to it. What does it mean to be ‘dead’ if only the body dies? Why are we so afraid of death, and spirits if we really believe in “heaven?” Then there’s the quantum physics aspect, just to make things really fun, and weird. So many interesting things in this particular subject that have often taken a backseat to gore, and jump-scares. Not that there’s anything wrong with gore and jump-scares.

Courtesy of ComiXology.

AIPT: What other haunted happenings can you tease for issue #2 and beyond of Tormented?

CA: Well, this first five-issue arc is Ryan’s story, and how it all relates to him. What is Quinn’s story, what was their relationship with their father, and how did that form Ryan — crucible-like — into becoming an unwilling hero. And throughout we get hints of the lives of the others on the team, and how they are each, individually, tormented by their personal lives, and how each one ties into ghosts, and death, and who they are today. If we’re lucky enough to get a second arc, that will be Opal’s story.

And then Sahir’s, Woody’s, and Brad’s as they go from haunted adventure to haunted adventure. I keep teasing Pat that we need to get a talking dog. The series was originally envisioned as a Twilight Zone/Rod Serling/Richard Matheson series of unusual scares and offbeat creeps, unique stories with unique characters, and a lot of that will still happen, just in a more expanded format than we originally intended of five-issue arcs. Pat did a promo piece to help sell it that has some of the stories we want to tell. At this point all I can say is we’d love to tell them all — and more.

AIPT: Why should anyone pick up Tormented?

CA: Because the reading experience is always so much better when you give yourself over to something personal, something real, something that was a labor of love. Plus, it’s cheap. Cheap thrills are always the best thrills.