In a matter of weeks, Everything — Christopher Cantwell’s second book for Dark Horse Comics’ Berger Books — will hit shelves and ComicBook.com has an exclusive first look at the blood-chilling cover for Issue #3. Not just that, but Cantwell has given us a letter to bring to you, the reader, teasing the upcoming series from he and I.N.J. Culbard.
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“Spending a lot of my childhood in Chicago,
I was obsessed with both the original Marshall Field store and the giant Montgomery Ward mail-order block on the river. Both held the promise of selling you or mailing you anything—anything. And when you look at them from the outside, even now, there’s this kind of magic aura still emanating from the old brick and mortar.
I also went to the mall a lot with my mom growing up in Texas. Many summer days were spent walking through the malaise of JCPenny, Mervyn’s, Sanger Harris, Foley’s, Dillard’s, Lord & Taylor, and so on. I can still sing the Foley’s Red Apple Sale jingle. The one I liked best was Sears. Sears had everything. It wasn’t just clothes. It had lawn mowers. And fridges. And power tools. And TVs. Vacuum cleaners next to shoes. It promised so much. “Stay forever!”
Later I learned about the Sears Catalog. Whoa. Even more promise. The thing sold you dreams. Underwear, toys, andirons. I read about how the Sears Catalog would reach Americans in remote parts of the country at the turn of the century and let them study all the little drawings of BB guns, stove pots, hunting hats, and gowns. Their imaginations did the rest. “All this can be yours (in 6 to 8 weeks).”
In high school, I sold luggage at Macy’s. I was the #2 salesman in the department. The guy above me was 61, I was 17, and the guy below me was 73. “This rollaway bag right here has nickel-plated zippers and will fit in any overhead compartment. The fabric used in its construction is ballistic nylon, the same thing law enforcement uses in bulletproof vests.” I sold people the puzzle piece they were missing from their lives. And my sales numbers during Christmastime? Forget it.
But there’s one store memory I have that is kind of dark and strange, and bothers me even to this day.
I was always thrilled to visit the Toys “R” Us by my house as a kid. It was off Highway 75 in North Texas, nothing really around it. When we didn’t turn left before the roller rink, I knew my mom was taking me to Toys “R” Us and I would vibrate with excitement.
But here’s the thing: this Toys “R” Us was also massively infested with crickets. And I don’t just mean a lot of crickets. I mean three-foot-high piles of dead crickets by the sliding doors, and beds of crickets on the linoleum crushed by shopping cart wheels. Six dead by the Hot Wheels. Some errant little bastard jumping off the bottom shelf right as I reached for a M.A.S.K. vehicle. There was something quietly terrifying and insidious surging underneath my personal world of wonder.”
Keep scrolling to see the killer cover for Everything #3!
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