In 1999, Fiona Apple released her second album, When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right.
One hundred years earlier, prospectors put their lives and fortunes on the line to strike gold in the frozen north. That period is the setting of Vault Comics’ newest series, This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills, a title that, while nowhere near as long as Apple’s sophomore effort, still has been shortened to THE RUSH.
The official synopsis, per Vault: 1899, Yukon Territory. A frozen frontier, bloodied and bruised by the last great Gold Rush. But in the lawless wastes to the North, something whispers in the hindbrains of men, drawing them to a blighted valley, where giant spidertracks mark the snow and impossible guns roar in the night. To Brokehoof, where gold and blood are mined alike. Now, stumbling toward its haunted forests comes a woman gripped not by greed but the snarling rage of a mother in search of her child.
From Si Spurrier (Way of X, Hellblazer) and Nathan Gooden (Barbaric, Dark One) comes THE RUSH, a dark, lyrical delve into the horror and madness of the wild Yukon.
Check out an exclusive, extended preview of the first issue below, followed by some words about the comic from Spurrier and Gooden.
And for more on THE RUSH, check out last week’s episode of WMQ&A, featuring guest Spurrier.
THE RUSH #1
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Nathan Gooden
Colorist: Addison Duke
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Designer: Tim Daniel
Cover A: Nathan Gooden
Cover B: Martin Simmonds
Cover C: Tim Daniel
On Sale: 10/27/2021
Synopsis: This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills.
SPURRIER:
“In the dying days of the 19th century, 100,000 ordinary people from all across the world sold up everything they owned, wasted every last penny on useless gear and worthless supplies, and set their hopeful hearts upon a hellish, yearlong trek through some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. Many died — often by their own hands — in starvation and scurvy and despair. Few made it beyond the mountains and frozen cataracts of the Yukon river. Fewer still stayed when they reached their destination, their hopes shattered by what they found there. The most brutal conditions imaginable, where every inch of dirt had to be melted by brazier before being dug; where a man could spend six months digging to bedrock only to find nothing; where every nugget found was soon liberated by a parade of hucksters, robbers, dance-hall conmen and price-gougers.
Almost none of the arrivals realized the impossible dream of striking it rich in the barren, bitter lands around a mean little creek known as the Klondike. And — more troubling — those who did? Almost every one of the great Bonanza Kings ended their lives in ruin, destitution and despair.
The gold was never the point.
I’ve been fascinated by the last great gold rush all my life. The stories of endurance and desperation, the mass hysteria, the casual disregard for life — and all of it dwarfed by the manic, burning, all-consuming lust for a fleeting, forlorn chance at wealth.
This is the perfect time and place to tell stories in which the mythologies and parables of ancient times — all those wonderful cautionary tales about avarice and monsters that slither wherever men’s lusts override their rationality — can be brought beautiful and meaningfully to life.
And then? To underscore it all with its most perfect opposite. The pure, unalloyed and unquenchable love a mother has for her child. That, for me — a recent dad, still trying and failing to grasp the unfathomable depths of love and protectiveness I never knew I had in me — made this a story that couldn’t go untold.
I’ve been a Nathan Gooden geek since I first clapped eyes on Zojaqan back in 2018, and the record-busting Barbaric simply blew my mind further. His style treads that magical line between the real and the heightened — the line where comics thrive, in my view — with an acerbic spikiness all of its own. His inks feel like the unlikely offspring of Eddie Campbell circa From Hell and Sergio Toppi — I can think of no greater compliment — and in that fusion of the brutally real and the beautifully exotic he is the greatest, nay only, fit for THE RUSH.”
GOODEN:
“This is the story I’ve been waiting to tell since I started in comics. I am a huge western fan. In fact, my first project ever in comics is a self-published graphic novel, Dead Eye, a horror story set in the late 1800s west. One of my favorite comics growing up was the anthology series Western Tales of Terror. I’m always drawn to the genre, so when I first read the outline for THE RUSH, I knew I had to be a part of it.
As we all know, Si Spurrier is a brilliant writer. I was blown away by the amount of research he had done for this project. I guess that’s why he is one of the best. It’s a time and place you think you know so well, until you start to dig deeper and realize there are worlds of information to uncover. Also, it’s Si Spurrier, horror and monsters! What more could you want?”
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
