Patrick Horvath Talks Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring, DC K.O., and The Future of the Series

Patrick Horvath is the talented writer and artist behind Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees (with letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou) from IDW Publishing. The series follows Samantha Strong, a serial-killer bear, in a small, cozy town filled with anthropomorphic animals. The book expertly balances its cutesy aesthetic with some pretty gruesome imagery, making it one of the most popular and critically acclaimed new comics. The comic received a sequel series, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring, which recently concluded its run. I spoke to Horvath about the book in a spoiler-filled conversation below.

Sam seemed prepared for the worst — how has her own self-preservation made her feel undefeatable at times?

I’ve always thought of her as an ebb and flow of hubris. It led to her being extremely caught off guard in the first book, and in RITE OF SPRING, it’s such a huge over-correction. It struck me that in the wake of Nigel, she’d never let herself be vulnerable in Woodbrook again, and during the years in-between she’d put together an exit plan if she ever had to leave. I think the undefeatable part of it all is also an underestimation on the part of the rest of the folks (Nigel, Monica, Patterson, etc). I’ll also just put it out there that you can’t always count on a plan coming together.

What was your thought process of including actual animals among the anthropomorphic ones? There's a bear sequence in each book, and animals (like Anchovy) play decent roles.

It was initially a nod from Richard Scarry’s Busytown books. He included anthropomorphic animals alongside regular ones, and in particular, he has a cover for WHAT DO PEOPLE DO ALL DAY? that features a pig that works at a butcher shop (complete with hanging sausage links). It seemed so devilishly tongue-in-cheek for Scarry to include that and I immediately thought, “Oh, we need to have a butcher shop.” And you start wondering pretty quickly about meat, and animals, beasts of burden, etc., etc. Pretty soon after that, I had the idea that nature (i.e. animals in the wild) would be the only thing that knew the truth about Samantha. After that I was off to the races.

The smaller character beats with Bertie, were those designed specifically to show that, amidst the chaos and calamity, there still were good people/humanity among the residents? On the flip side, was Lewis used as a catalyst to show that you don't need to embrace the pain and darkness even when it comes in spades?

In part, that’s sort of what I wanted to do with their character arcs, but I don’t know that I had those specific motivations in mind when I started plotting them. In a broader sense, this 2nd arc is following the impacts made by the first. Monica is the obvious large element of that, but also with Pauline, Lewis, Wendy, and Bertie, we’re following along and seeing how they’ve been shaped by those events. In all of that, I was really curious to see how they’d wrestle with it, and see if there was some bit of hope at all that could make its way out.

What was it like to see Samantha in the DC KO tournament? Has the reach of this book surprised you? Did you ever dream you'd be designing a character who would eventually appear on a cover (you did) with the Joker?

It’s still surreal for me to see Samantha in DC K.O. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this book would grow to have the notoriety that it has. Even when we agreed to have Samantha join in on their book, it still didn’t sink in what that exactly meant until I saw the reveal with Jim Lee’s presentation at NYCC. Once I saw all the other characters that she’d be joining, my jaw hit the floor.

It feels inevitable that Sam will slip up to a degree that will eventually take her out. But still, her planning and failsafes continue to keep her alive nearly a decade after readers saw her first murder. Can she win?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “win.” Life always blindsides you when you least expect it, so I wouldn’t count anything out. On the other hand, it’s sort of galling to see that there are so many villains in the real world that managed to never face justice. I mean, Andrew Jackson is still on the twenty-dollar bill.

When you started this arc, did you know a third arc was coming? Can you say anything about what's coming next, or is this it?

The idea for the 2nd and 3rd arc both came to me when I was finishing up issue 3 of the 1st arc. A pretty strong trajectory started taking shape, and a lot of the pieces fell into place with the story. Without getting into specifics, it won’t be a big surprise to say that there may be another time jump in the 3rd arc. It’s also probably not a surprise that the story is going to continue the trend of seeing what the ripple effects are of Sam’s actions, and how those play out over a changing socio-political landscape.

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring is available in comic book shops now. The trade paperback arrives where books are sold on July 21st, 2026.