Ed Brisson Talks Making The Bloody New Slasher Series Hammer Head with Damian Couceiro - Mad Cave Studios

Ed Brisson is the Canadian comic writer behind titles like Predator, Old Man Logan, and Ghost Rider, and this week his newest comic, Hammer Head, with frequent collaborator Damian Couceiro (Wolverine & Kitty Pryde, X-Force, Old Man Logan) and Dee Cunliffe, from Mad Cave Studios, arrives at comic book stores. The comic follows Jules, whose past trauma with the titular serial killer is reignited under strange and bloody circumstances. I spoke to Ed about the book; check out our conversation below!

TERROR CAN'T BE CONTAINED! For 20 years, Jules has been hiding from her past. As the only survivor of the Hammer Head killing-spree, she carries the guilt and trauma of having watched as everyone she loved was brutally murdered. Every couple of years, Hammer Head rises from the dead to continue his reign of terror anew, and with each repeated massacre, Jules falls deeper into the warm embrace of her own dark coping mechanisms. When she's thrown into prison with no trial and no hope, Jules finds herself part of a dark ritual built to force her back into the past that she's spent her life trying to escape.

How did Hammer Head as a comic come to be? Was this something you had an idea for some time? What made Mad Cave the best publisher for this story? 

The idea for Hammer Head was one I came up with back in 2023, though I’d been eager to do horror comics ever since I started writing professionally. But yeah, Hammer Head started as sort of a throwaway idea I came up with while walking my dog one day -- an idea to do a slasher series, where we come in deep into the series -- as though we're starting with part seven or nine. I didn’t want to retell the same stories we’ve already told before; I wanted to do something where we could examine the impacts of constant slasher attacks and how we as a society would work to mitigate that.

As for Mad Cave. I published Wild Animals with them last year, and that was a great experience. They’re incredibly creator-friendly, and I enjoy working with them. Even though they’re a newer publisher, it seems that they’ve been on the rise lately with some exciting projects, and it’s been great to be part of that.

You've worked with Damian Couceiro before on Beyond the Breach. Were you eager to work with them again, and what can you say about their work here? You write some pretty violent and gory stuff, and his art is certainly up to the task.

A: Damian has been my longest and most steady collaborator in comics. We started pitching books together about 20 years ago now and have worked on about a dozen projects in that time -- everything from creator-owned to Marvel books. The two of us just gel really well together and are always on the hunt for something new

With Beyond The Breach, I feel like we were testing the horror waters a little -- while that book is more sci-fi than horror, it definitely had some horrific moments in it and Damian delivered with gusto.

With Hammer Head, we wanted to make sure that we really delivered on the promise of what you’d expect in a book about a slasher who kills his victims with a sledgehammer -- it’s ugly and grisly, and Damian does the job SO WELL. More than once, I’ve had to ask Jon (Moisan, our editor) if we could get away with what we’re doing in the pages of the book, but he and Mad Cave have been 100% on board.

What was the thought process behind creating (and ultimately the design) Hammer Head? He feels like a very classic horror villain in a world that is a fresh twist on the genre. 

The task we set ourselves was to create a killer who would both feel fresh, but also like he belonged in the same conversation as Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Leatherface. Right off the bat, we wanted to make sure he’d survive the “silhouette test” -- if we lined him up with the others and just had them in outline, could you tell who was who? 

In exploring that, one of the things we opted to do was make him tall and thin, and we knew he’d have a sledgehammer right from the start. To my mind, if it looks like he can barely wield it, let alone wield it as expertly as he can, he’d come across as more terrifying.

Initially, I was really pushing for a mask modelled after early 1900s Halloween masks. If you haven’t seen them before -- they’re horrifying. Usually homemade using available supplies, with unintentionally nightmare-inducing results:

Ultimately, Damian came up with the design for the mask as we have it now -- shredded at the bottom, blood-stained around the eyes -- and it was perfect.

Another little bit that Damian does that I think is brilliant is that Hammer Head’s clothing is all slightly too short for him. His sleeves aren’t long enough nor are his pants. It’s a small detail, but I think it helps sell that there’s something not quite right about Hammer Head (aside from his constant killing sprees).

Jules has undergone serious trauma in her life. How does this book explore this trauma, and what did you want to say?

In horror movies, there’s a tendency to put a lot of weight on the shoulders of any returning final girl. In the newer Halloween movies, Laurie Strode is a survivalist, ready for Michael’s return; in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy is a counsellor ready to guide the new batch of victims to safety. Both have been victimized, yet both are expected to jump into the battle once again, rather than having someone in power step in to put an end to it. That’s not a knock against those stories; I just think that there’s more than those two paths for someone who’s had to face a slasher repeatedly. Taking a path of escape, of trying to remove yourself  -- even via drugs -- is an understandable outcome of the trauma and pain that someone like Jules has suffered. After having suffered through several attacks and having watched as dozens died around her -- family, friends, and loved ones -- Jules has instead opted to isolate herself as best she can, hoping that removing herself from the cycle of violence will make the problem go away.

What can you tease about what's coming next in this series? Can this operation to keep Hammer Head contained work?

Well, you’re going to have to read the whole series to discover if the gambit will work or not!

As to what comes next, we haven’t forgotten that we’re first and foremost a horror book. There’ll be buckets of brutal kills, heartbreaking losses, and soul-crushing revelations. There are connections not yet revealed in the book that make what’s happening cut so much deeper than what we initially think.

Damian is really doing some career-defining work here, in my honest opinion. What you see in #1 is just a small taste of what’s to come.

Hammer Head #1 is in comic book stores now! Let your shop know you’re looking for a copy!