From the Composer:
Broodhollow is like a perfectly tailored venn diagram. It sits at the intersection of unnerving cosmic horror, clever character driven story, and textural ligne claire art. I’ve always been a fan of contrasting elements; in skilled hands the differences make each aspect shine the brighter. And I don’t know of anyone in comics who handles such contrasts with the deftness and emotional impact that Kris Straub does. Reading the first few panels, I was hit with a major dose of creative catalyst. I was inspired. I work as a composer for film, and when your day job relies on creativity, you come to value genuine inspiration very highly. I wrote some rough drafts, and toyed with the setting in my spare time. When the Kickstarter came around and Kris announced stretch goals, including an album, I wrote him directly and told him I’d been writing music inspired by Broodhollow since that first strip. He kindly asked to see some of what I’d done, and this album came about. I can’t say thank you enough, Mr. Straub, for letting me visit your world. When it came time for recording, I made an effort to get my hands on as many period-appropriate instruments as possible. I think it contributed substantially to the authenticity. I borrowed some, bought others, and ended up with a surprisingly eclectic and beautiful bunch of instruments.
This album is a bit unusual. It’s somewhere between program music (a musical illustration of a narrative) and soundtrack (music underscoring or accompanying visuals), with a few dashes of period-pieces thrown in for good measure. We cover a lot of stylistic ground, from folksy rambling to impressionism to modern soundtrack composing, and plenty in-between. It’s difficult to write directly “scary” music when you’re not scoring to picture for, say, a scary movie. It’s also difficult to do without resorting to cliches. It’s even more difficult to represent the kind of slowly building, dawning-realization-horror that Kris does so well. I’ve done my best to create a backing track to the story, and to do Broodhollow justice. There are some pieces here that are discordant, chaotic and that you may find unpleasant. They’re supposed to be. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoy.
DAVID GRAEY
From the Author
When david came to me asking if he could play in my playground, I said no. Maybe not “no” outright, but there was more than a little no in it, I’m certain. I am very precious about my worlds. I hadn’t expected to be so precious about Broodhollow, a comic strip that was designed to work as a single story — were it to fail completely. My long-running sci-fi webcomic effort Starslip was wrapping up after seven years, and I had been looking for my next project. For a while I was sure it’d be fantasy — it seemed like a challenge, because I never liked fantasy but could never figure out why — but the longer I spent on it, the more I realized my heart wasn’t in it. I was looking forward to drawing some horrible monsters for that project, and turned my attention there. I hadn’t expected to love Broodhollow as much as I do. The main character, Wadsworth Zane, is just me shifted down and to the left. His OCD-adjacent fears are taken straight from my own, and it made writing Curious Little Thing an oddly personal affair. I think that feeling of authenticity made it connect with readers in a pure way: I wrote what I knew. Curious Little Thing, the first book, is a fairly open-and-shut story intended to stand on its own. I was ready for Broodhollow to be met with an emphatic “that’s cool, I guess” and that would be the end of it. At least I’d get a complete volume out of it that I could be proud of. (I’m very happy to have discovered that was not the case.) David appeared out of nowhere and asked me to listen to something he’d done for Broodhollow. I was very skeptical! And cranky! Broodhollow was my playground, after all! But I was a little intrigued.
After hearing the first few tracks, I went from precious to impressed. He had my approval, and continued to nail the mood with each track he sent along to me. David eventually succeeded — he had forced my door from closed to open. Broodhollow is a nice little playground, but it’s more fun when you invite others in. Thank you, David, for your talent and your care. It shows.
And if I were you, I’d check my closet door before listening.
KRIS STRAUB
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