Every month, Dark Horse Comics gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a comic or book in the Horsepower column which appears in each of our printed comics issues for the month. These articles can include the inspiration behind a specific title, what it’s like to work in the comics industry, or some other special feature on the highlighted title of the month. In this month’s Horsepower, Ben Stenbeck gives readers a look into the new series Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man:
Mike Mignola and I started talking about Lands Unknown back in 2022. It took me a while to get my head around what he was saying. We’re doing our own things—he’s telling his stories, I’m telling mine.
Yikes.
If you’ve read Bowling With Corpses, you already know it’s brilliant. I’ve read half of Volume 2—Uri Tupka and the Gods: Another Story from Lands Unknown (which should be available around the time you read this)— and that is also brilliant. So go ahead and contemplate the existential horror, the careerwrecking folly, of trying to make something that’s supposed to stand alongside a series of original books by the legendary Mike Mignola.
How do you combat an overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome?
The secret is: you don’t. You dive headfirst into doing your ignorant best. You make something because you enjoy making it, doubts and all. What’s the alternative? Am I supposed to not write and draw a series of horror/fantasy folk tales? Hell no. Mike recently looked at some pages I showed him and said this was the series I was born to draw. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know this is the most fun I’ve ever had making comics. Well—it would be, if I weren’t drowning in doubt. Which, remember, I’m ignoring. So don’t worry about that. I’m fine. Everything is great. This is gonna be great.
So far, I feel like this is really Mike’s world. My involvement has mostly been as the guy Mike bounced broad ideas off. Like: “Do you think we should have dinosaurs in this world?” And of course I said yes, obviously we should have dinosaurs in this world. We
talked through some place names, and I think I suggested one or two mythology ideas that Mike then went away with and came back with something far
more interesting.
My real contributions to Lands Unknown start with The Skinless Man—a story about
a bad guy going up against some even worse guys, told by a witch to a character who’ll be
important in my next few stories. I wanted to open with a creepy tale that introduces a
few things from my various corners of Lands Unknown, pieces I hope I get to keep exploring
for a few years.
It also has a ton of stuff I really wanted to draw. Which is the best thing about Lands Unknown, It provides Mike and I an almost infinite world of possibility where we can let our imaginations go nuts. And for my part I hope I can give readers comics that are as entertaining to read as they have been to make.
Lands Unknown is a sprawling mythic world full of monsters, folklore, gods, humor, horror, and lots of swords. Shaped by two creators working in different parts of the same world. Not trying to meet up, not trying to combine what we are doing or avoid it. We’re figuring a lot out as we go. It is unknown territory after all
—Ben Stenbeck
Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man #1, by Ben Stenbeck, Dave Stewart, and Clem Robins, is now available in comic shops!
