You may know Gus Moreno best as the author of 2021’s excellent This Thing Between Us. (It’s basically what would happen if an Alexa went nuts and started menacing its homeowners.) Now, Moreno, alongside artist Jakub Rebelka (Origins) is making moves into comics with his debut series, the epically-titled When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee.
Described as a “mesmerizing and thrilling descent into Hell itself,” When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee follows Father Berrera after he’s “banished” to the uber remote South American town of Puerto Cristina. Once there, he’s teamed with Father Stygian, whose approach exorcisms both “predate[s] the Church” and even unsettles those in charge.
The resulting story sees Barrera trying to “unlock the mysteries of Stygian’s strange practices” as the pair delve into a rash of possessions and a “mysterious hospital patient, one who’s been in a coma for nearly half a century without aging a single day.” Oh, and did I mention that the town is “rife with evil and supernatural phenomena?” ‘Cause it is.
Ahead of When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee #1 (which drops January 1 from BOOM! Studios), we caught up recently with Moreno to talk about those story elements and much more. Fans of Moreno’s other work will recognize the same wit and inventive streak in this title, and those make When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee a rewarding, multifaceted slice of horror that terrorizes as much as it asks question of our basic humanity.
FOC for When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee is Monday, December 9.
Variant cover by Jacob Phillips. Courtesy of BOOM! Studios.
AIPT: What was it like making the leap from novels into comics?
Gus Moreno: Honestly, a lot easier than I thought. That’s because of two people: my editor, Ramiro Portnoy, who did what great editors do and nudged me here and there in the right direction; and Clay McLeod Chapman, who generously let me pick his brain and read his old scripts.
AIPT: Similarly, how do you think this story will compare for fans of This Thing Between Us?
GM: I think fans of the book will recognize my love of the Weird, as well as the escalation that builds from issue to issue. I love to keep readers guessing, and that’s definitely a key element of When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee.
AIPT: You’d mentioned on Instagram about “relaunching the exorcism genre.” Why are you drawn to this, and how do you hope this title stands out from similar tales?
GM: I haven’t fully formulated this in my head yet, so I hope this makes sense, but I think there’s two forms of storytelling I’m really interested in: really personal, specific stories that feel like the writer reduced their life by years just to tell it, and ‘sandbox’ stories, where writers engage in the same kind of tropes and themes and archetypes. The vampire genre is an example of a sandbox story, where writers from different backgrounds, different eras, are in conversation with each other. I’ve always wanted to jump into one of these sandboxes, and the exorcism genre seemed like the perfect fit for me.
One, because I grew up Catholic and have always been interested in the inner lives of priests, and two, because I felt like there was a lot of interest in the genre, but there weren’t many standout works outside of something like The Exorcist. Most exorcism stories get to the actual exorcism, and it’s just so boring, because no one can improve on what Friedkin and Blatty did, so I decided to go a different route and reformulate the whole exorcism ritual altogether, and I think the result is something that feels esoteric, primeval, and adds a new dimension to the subgenre that I haven’t seen before.
AIPT: Building off that last question, an exorcism in the debut feels extra novel — it feels romantic or earnest or loving in a way, more poetic than you’d expect. Were there any specific traditions/approaches you studied to make this “function?”
GM: I researched how current catholic priests perform exorcisms, but I also researched how rabbis performed exorcisms before the Catholic church’s existence, because exorcisms didn’t start with Christianity. You read enough of these methods and realize there’s a pattern to most of them, so I just took that pattern and created my own version.
AIPT: Is there an exorcism-centric film/book/story/etc. that you see as the gold standard? Some ideal that you thought to work toward?
GM: I think The Exorcist is the gold standard, but the real inspiration for me was The Exorcist III, where you have a detective and a priest trying to track down a serial killer on the loose. It’s a perfect blend of religious iconography and the hardboiled detective genre. Most of the film is the two characters sitting and talking. It’s the best.
AIPT: What was it like working with Jakub Rebelka? How did you react to adding another cook to the kitchen, as it were?
GM: I love writing novels because it’s my singular vision, but making the jump to comics, I was really excited by the idea of collaboration, and Jakub has been an absolute dream to work with. I don’t know how to explain it, but once I saw his initial sketches, writing the issues just became so easy for me. The scripts became more about me getting out of the way to let Jakub do his thing, which is to create arresting images you want to linger on all day.
AIPT: Do you find yourself resonating more with Father Stygian or Father Barrera?
GM: As a younger man, I probably would have resonated with Father Stygian more. He’s an island unto himself. Someone so composed, who exudes self-knowledge and an understanding of life far beyond my own understanding. But now, I resonate more with Father Barrera, because life beats us all up, and the only thing to do is roll with the punches. That, or go insane.
AIPT: Maybe we all just have Trump on the brain, but is there something especially timely/relevant about this story? I’m thinking about the seed planted when you mention “believers [wanting] their suffering woven into a grander story of good versus evil.”
GM: That’s interesting. I’ve never considered that, but you’re right. That line was sort of a shot at internet culture, how people glom onto niche communities and adopt the group personality as their own, but it applies to our current political state as well.
AIPT: What about infusing that police procedural structure/element/vibe made sense with this story? And what does it add to the story overall?
GM: I really love the structure of a police procedural. I think we can all outline an episode of Law and Order: SVU in our head, because it’s a type of show that’s been on air since the advent of television. The structure provides a form of limitation, something to bounce off of, subvert, uphold, and I loved playing with that. Especially since our main characters are not cops in the slightest. You remove the law enforcement aspect, and the procedural becomes a search for truth, a quest to illuminate the central mystery, which in a sense is an attempt to solve the mystery of life in general.
AIPT: I feel like the setting here is as much a character as anyone else. Why opt for a place like Puerto Cristina, the southernmost place/city in South America?
GM: The Chilean archipelago is such a fascinating area. It’s got a distinctive climate with a plethora of animals most people will never see. There’s an island where, at one point in the year, you can find orcas, great white sharks, blue whales, and more. It just seemed like the perfect place to set a story about an exorcist who the Church uses but would readily deny his existence if it came to it.
AIPT: What can you tease from the rest of this story? Anything to watch out for or focus on?
GM: We haven’t even touched on the exorcism that sets off a chain of events no one in the comic is prepared for. Maybe that’s one thing to tease, there’s more than one exorcism. And once the ball gets rolling on the mystery, it doesn’t stop until the very last page of the series. Be prepared for a Training Day-level of escalation and suspense.
AIPT: Is there anything else we should know about When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee, exorcisms, fiction, art/comics, etc.?
GM: Stay away from ouija boards.
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