top of page

An Interview with Alisa Kwitney: "Old Fashioned Horror is a Relief"


An Interview with Alisa Kwitney: "Old Fashioned Horror is a Relief"

An Interview with Alisa Kwitney about 'Howl'


Howl is a witty bohemian retro sci-fi comic book mini-series that can best be described as Mrs. Maisel meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The five-issue series is set in Greenwich Village in the late ‘50s, home of poets, artists, musicians, sci-fi writers, their put-upon partners — and the extraterrestrial spores that are secretly taking them over.


We caught up with the writer, Alisa Kwitney, to talk about her influences on the series, gender values, and what Alisa would do if she'd do if an alien conspiracy was taking place.


My Kind Of Weird: Howl feels very pre-cold war coded. What inspired the mood of the first issue?


Alisa Kwitney: Whenever anyone writes about the past, they are really writing about the present moment. And of course, this is a strange, backward-looking moment, in some of the same ways the 1950's were backward looking. The styles of the fifties, the whole ideal of the happy housewife in a big poufy skirt -- these were all nostalgic attempts to return to a simpler, pre-World War II reality.


In the first page of the first issue, no one (well, except for one little kid) notices the threat of a spaceship overhead, spreading spores. It's so easy to laugh at people in the past failing to notice the obvious danger, and so easy in the present to fail to notice the obvious danger.


MKOW: As much as there’s a light easy-to-read feeling when you first pick up this book, there’s also a sobering commentary on sexism and I’d like to say ‘traditional values.’ Why was this so important to you? 


Alisa Kwitney: Sexism is like microplastics -- we've all ingested so much of it that we don't always realize the cumulative effect. For example, I was rewatching Funny Face, the Audrey Hepburn film from 1957. In one of the early scenes, a 58-year old Fred Astaire plays a photographer who has brought his entire fashion magazine crew crashing into bookseller Audrey's little NYC bookstore, leaving the place a mess. He stays behind to help clear up -- what a great guy -- pretends to listen to her ideas about literature, and then kisses her without warning or invitation. "Why did you do that?" she asks. He tells her he intuited that it was what she wanted -- and leaves her convinced that, indeed, she had wanted that kiss, and furthermore, she wanted him, and was falling in love with him. 


I think highly gendered thinking and 'traditional values' can block men and women from fully understanding themselves and others. It certainly blocked most American male science fiction writers of the fifties and sixties from fully appreciating that women are as much human as the aliens they imagined. 


Howl #1 - Page 9
Howl #1 - Page 9


MKOW: You’ve gone on record saying Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a big influence. I’d like to drill down into what aspects of this movie that inspired your writing?


Alisa: The nightmare of discovering that your partner or friend or family looks the same but feels subtly off, different, wrong -- that's a real world nightmare. It's the horror of everyone who has ever woken up one day to find their lover acting cold and distant. It's also the horror of discovering that an old friend no longer shares your values or way of looking at the world. I wanted to combine that nightmare with something contradictory -- the sense that maybe this new version of your loved one is in some ways better, kinder, more loving.


That came from the true life story of Martin Guerre and the 1980's film, about a Medieval peasant who left his wife only to return many years later, knowing what only Martin would know but acting in a way that made his wife doubt that he could be the same man. And, of course, I wanted to keep the sense that this new, lovely version was still a danger.


MKOW: Do you think certain hate groups co-opting conspiracy theories has made this space of horror and science fiction more or less frightening? 


Alisa: As in so many things, I think the answer is in the question. Things are so dicey right now that old-fashioned horror is a relief. Dear God, give me cannibal plants and mutated cockroaches, but please, don't let my phone ping after 9 p.m. with another news update!


MKOW: Personally I loved the coloring and how it highlighted a variety of moods, much like Dario Argento’s Suspiria. Did you have a hand in colour recommendations for the colorist? 


Alisa: Mauricet, my artist and collaborator, did the colors, and he showed me and I said, Dear God, you are brilliant. I do think I said to make one character blonder, to avoid confusion. Everything else is his genius.


MKOW: Finally, and probably the most important question of all, you’re Mrs Maisel, you are stuck in the 50s and an alien conspiracy is taking place. What’s your first move?


Alisa: Brisket. A stiff Manhattan first, but then a nice brisket. Except that if I were Mrs. Maisel, I would screw up the brisket. So I would do what my mother, Ziva, would have done, and invite them in to discuss their feelings over cigarettes and triscuits. 


 

About Howl


Howl #1 is a 5 issue science fiction mini-series with elements of horror sprinkled throughout. It is written by Alisa Kwitney and with art by Belgian comic book artist Mauricet. Issue 1 is available as of publishing this article. Howl is published by Ahoy Comics.


About Alisa Kwitney


Alisa Kwitney is a former DC Comics staff editor and the author of the Eisner-nominated mini-series Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold. Her novels have appeared on The New York Times New and Noteworthy in Paperback list and Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program. She has an MFA from Columbia University and has taught writing at Fordham University and McDaniel and Manhattanville Colleges.


Her mother, Ziva Kwitney, wrote non-fiction for Ms Magazine, Cosmopolitan and the New York Times. Her father, Robert Sheckley, was the author of the novel The Tenth Victim, which became a cult classic film. He is considered a master of dark, funny science fiction, and is best remembered for his short stories. Much of his best work was done in the late fifties and sixties, when he was living with Ziva in Greenwich Village.

© 2025 My Kind Of Weird

bottom of page