Horror emerges from central Florida’s swamps in Mama Came Callin’ (Morrow and HarperAlley, Feb.), as a young biracial woman named Kirah investigates the elusive costumed-killer Gator Man who terrorizes her. Kirah clashes with friends and unexpected enemies in shadowy and claustrophobic scenes that amplify the “appropriately off-kilter vibe” for a “satisfying brew of slasher and Southern gothic,” per PW’s review.

Dwayne McDuffie Award-winning cartoonist Ezra Claytan Daniels has threaded the horror genre through his prior books, Upgrade Soul and BTTM FDRS, and contributed to Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (edited by Jordan Peele). Here, he pairs up with Caribbean American artist, Camilla Sucre, a newcomer to comics—who makes her trade debut in Mama Came Callin’. PW talked with Daniels about wrestling with history and finding the perfectly nauseating color palette.

What’s at this story’s root?

When visiting Florida, I found an interesting dichotomy between the wealthy northerners, who hire local people to do their landscaping, and the swamp people, the actual Floridians who live there and work there. Everything I do is dealing with dualities.

I also always wanted to do a pulpy crime thriller, like the graphic novel adaptation of Donald Goines’s Daddy Cool, which is one of my favorite books. So I set one in this Florida culture. I was also preoccupied at the time with my own identity as a biracial person—and here I could explore that within the context of this gonzo thriller. It ended up being the most difficult thing I’ve ever written, digging deep and forcing myself to confront uncomfortable concepts of identity.

How does American history influence Kirah’s identity?

I started working on this story around 2016 when Trump was elected. Half of my family is white, and I have uncles who voted for Trump. It was this difficult reconciliation. I was interrogating those connections and that proximity to the problematic sides of my white heritage, and the privilege that entails.

Where did Gator Man come from?

The original monster was a golliwog that leaned into the history of blackface with regard to specific advertising iconography. It was too on the nose. I didn’t want to turn off the people who I wanted to reach with this story.

I stumbled across marketing imagery for Little African Licorice Drops, which featured a cartoon Black baby being eaten by an alligator as the packaging. People in the antebellum South in the Jim Crow era were so enamored by this idea of alligators preferring Black babies over any other food that it became this beloved trope. It disturbed me but was also obscure enough that it was worth shining a light on.

How did you and Camilla, the artist, meet?

It took me 15 years from beginning to end to finish Upgrade Soul, my first big graphic novel that came out in 2018. It was such a grueling, time-consuming process that writing and drawing another graphic novel on my own was a daunting idea.

When I finished the script for Mama Came Callin’, I knew I wasn’t going to draw it myself. I was feeling grateful for having the opportunities that I’ve been given, and I wanted to hold the door open for someone who’s just coming up.

It was at least a year before I found Camilla. Her style is confident and has a unique aesthetic. It’s cartoony in its expression but also has a darkness to it.

How did you both determine the book’s visual economy?

We were drawn to risograph and duotone printing styles, and we wanted to work with a limited color palette. We created a very dark blue that paired with this sickly, pukey yellow overlaps to create a nauseous green feel.

It has an oppressive feel. We wanted it to be claustrophobic, like everything’s always closing in.