A Graphic Look at What Lies Ahead for The Strain

Warning: Even if you have seen Sunday's season finale, this peek into The Strain's latest graphic-novel release features info about things that might make you go hmmmm.

Like FX's horror drama, The Strain: Night Eternal is an adaptation of the vampire novel trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (executive producers on the show as well). The second part of this installment — which covers the final book in the series — jumps us a bit into the future to show how far the bloodsucking plague has spread and "the heavy toll this battle has taken on our heroes," says artist Mike Huddleston. In addition, he says that the gorgeously gross Dark Horse Comics graphic novel (on sale now) "gives an in-depth look into the ancient back story of the vampire plague, tracing its origins back from current day to Roman times all the way into prehistory. We're able to watch as the plague weaves its way through time."

Handpicked by Del Toro himself, Huddleston has been working on The Strain's illustrated iteration for over three years at Dark Horse, but has avoided the original novels and the TV show so as not to be influenced by other takes on the tale. Instead, Huddleston says it's been input from del Toro that has helped him and his team come up with designs that fit the often-unsettling spirit of the material. "The ickiness of the vamps wasn't difficult, the real challenge was getting the physiology of the vamps figured out...my initial sketches to Guillermo were vampire head and neck cross-sections with notes on how certain muscles would work, what parts of the skeleton would have to adapt, and questions about how far we could push the distortion of the figure," he says of their collaboration. "Guillermo would give me his feedback and occasionally his own sketches, and I'd do another set of drawings incorporating his ideas. Eventually we found our vampires."

Unfortunately, all work and no spoilers has meant remaining in the dark in regards to what is coming next. "I don't know how The Strain ends! I'm reading the book as I draw it, so three years on I'm as excited as our readers for each new issue," he confesses. "Keeping myself away from the series has been more and more difficult though, I'm assuming early next year when I finish Night Eternal I'm having a The Strain binge viewing night."

For those of you brave enough to look now, check out this page from The Strain: Night Eternal and see what's coming down the pike for Eph, The Master and a certain somebody you might be surprised to see is still around.

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