Cavan Scott & Corin Howell give VAULT hell

Read the details on both books below:

Merging neo-noir with the supernatural, Godfather of Hell is the story of a mob enforcer who instead of suffering eternal damnation for his sins, tries his best to take control of hell. The first issue is written by New York Times Bestseller Cavan Scott (Star Wars: The High Republic, Shadow Service) and drawn by Bram Stoker Award-winning artist Pius Bak (Eat the Rich, The Magicians), the series debuts on October 2024 and will also feature art from multiple other artists such as Nathan Gooden (Barbaric), Joshua Hixson (Deviant), Chris Shehan (House of Slaughter), Jake Phillips (Destroy All Monsters), Corin Howell (Lilith), and Conor Boyle (Judge Dredd).

Lilith is an immortal who’s been banished from her home, a dimensional plane suspiciously similar to mankind’s idea of hell. She’s been posing as a model on Earth while secretly preying on humans. That is, until she runs into Penelope, a sweet bookstore owner with a tome that might hold the secret to returning Lilith to her home dimension. If the mismatched pair doesn’t end up falling in love first! 

I chatted with Scott and Howell at the show.

HOWELL: I am the writer and artist for Lilith, and it’s basically about this whole distant monster that finds love in the most unexpected person. She’s a very, very, lonely person until she finds this one person that can help get her home. And it’s a story about how she finds love and a family. It’s also full of murder, bloody horror, and sexy dudes and sexy ladies. It’s goth. If you saw Jennifer’s Body and thought Jennifer did nothing wrong, this book is for you.

DEANNA DESTITO: Do you like mixing genres a bit? It’s not straight horror, straight comedy, straight romance?

HOWELL: When I first started writing Lilith, I was like, this is too serious. It doesn’t feel right. So I started making it more funny and then it started getting more fun and people loved it. I balance out the dark horror stuff with just a stupid, silly comedy. Just things I like having fun with…I don’t want it to be heavy and then people getting depressed. I want them to actually like her. She’s not evil. I can tell you that.

SCOTT: In Godfather of Hell, it’s similar. It’s a bit of a mashup of genres. It’s a gangster movie as directed by Lucifer. So it’s about a mob enforcer, debt collector, who finds himself on the wrong side of his boss in a drive-by shooting. He ends up in Hell and he goes, this is the best job opportunity I’ve ever had. Because hell is one big racket.

DESTITO: I’ve read both of the first issues, and they’re a lot of fun. They’re different, but they both have that horror and that humor. There’s levity, and your main characters aren’t good people but you kinda like them. 

SCOTT: Yeah. The first thing you see him do is throw someone out the window.

HOWELL: I also just like the fact that your character just becomes the loan shark of hell. I like that idea so much.

DESTITO: Do you guys have anything else that you’re working on?

SCOTT: Ahem, Shadow Service.

HOWELL: We need to finish it. It’s just been sitting there and ending on a cliffhanger, and I’m like, wait, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

SCOTT:  And I know how it ends.

HOWELL: I know you know! It’s killing me.

DESTITO: How was that? Working together on Shadow Service?

SCOTT: We worked together first on Star Wars. Briefly.

HOWELL: Yeah, briefly on Vader’s Castle and the young Han Solo story.

SCOTT: I pitched Shadow Service to Adrian [Wassel] at Vault, and he immediately said Corin’s name, and I was like, yes! Why didn’t I think of that? And it just became more monstrous and more demon-orientated the more issues we went. And then I threw a dragon into it.

HOWELL: Oh, yeah. He’s like I’m sorry about that. I put this in the script. I’m like, no, you’re not!

SCOTT: Yeah. I mean, with that one again, it was a mashup of genres. There’s a lot of James Bond in there and Mission Impossible, starting in London, going to Rome. Various other places. 

DESTITO: If you were to have any character from comics, cartoons, video games, or movies, appear in your current books as a guest star, who would you pick?

HOWELL: I’ll go off of my current brain rot right now because seeing Deadpool and Wolverine recently I’m back in the Marvel fandom. I came back after years of being away, after the end of Avengers, and oh, my God. It’s Hugh Jackman with no shirt.

DESTITO: Yes, please.

HOWELL: I have had so much fun with that movie. I haven’t had that much fun with a Marvel movie since the first Avengers movie. So I guess the one that would work with Lilith would be Wolverine. Because they’re both immortal. She can’t technically die by human hands. She can only die by her same species. Little hint there, a little tidbit. But I can just imagine a fight breaking out and Logan just going, what the…And, of course, in true Logan fashion, he probably bangs her. He has banged every single chick in the Marvel universe.

DESTITO: Every single one.

SCOTT: And he still lies there on the bed looking at photos.

DESTITO: What about your book?

SCOTT: Well, we’ve only seen one aspect of hell, so I think Pyramid Head.

DESTITO: I love Silent Hill.

HOWELL: I’m still praying for another good movie because the first one was awesome. But the last one, why were there Puritans?