Writer Joe Hill has made a name for himself by writing novels and comics that tell stories of the strange and the supernatural. And recently, some of those stories have been adapted for television. In addition to Netflix’s Locke and Key series, Hill’s NOS4A2 novel is the foundation for the AMC series of the same name, which is now beginning its second season. According to Hill, the epic story of a fight between vampire Charlie Manx and troubled but well-formed creative artist Vic McQueen is even bigger and more ambiguous in Season 2.
Joe Hill: Well, I don’t know if there was any “wow” moment when I thought, “Oh, this is what’s working next.” I wanted to write about a covered bridge that was in Bangor, Maine, where I grew up. There was a bridge there when I was a kid who was formidable and fell, an old covered bridge … the River Pensbotscott. And my friend and I challenged ourselves to ride a bike because you could see the bottom.
And I used to imagine going further. First off, I’m riding the bike as much as I can with the theory that if the floor starts to come out from under me, as long as you have speed, you can’t fall to your death. But the other thing is that if I close my eyes and imagine what it would take to get out of the other end of the bridge and be somewhere else, not Bangor anymore, and how interesting it would be to have views instead of places. Connection bridge a. And so, somehow, the first notion, the first idea about NOS4A2, started as a child.
There's still time to save Wayne. All new #NOS4A2 this Sunday at 10pm. pic.twitter.com/AECTi8hSYS
— NOS4A2 (@NOS4A2) July 31, 2020
Another place where the story started, I think old cars are interesting, and I live in a city … there are weekly old car shows in the summer. And I saw an elegant grey sister car from the 40s. I don’t remember what it was, maybe it was packaged, it’s hard to remember, but it had a license plate and I don’t remember what the license plate was, but it was something like “Gray Ghost”. And I got cold after seeing this. And that’s where I started to get the idea … a vampire story where the car was a vampire rather than a person, although in NOS4A2 it’s definitely a bit of both, the car and the person are the same creatures.