Episode Details

Neil Sabatino joins Word Balloon to talk about Open Caskets, a darkly funny and deeply surreal graphic novel created with his longtime collaborator Shaun Simon. Set around a support group where society's misfits, outcasts, and oddballs share stories that feel like lost episodes of The Twilight Zone, Open Caskets blends unsettling horror, offbeat humor, and emotional honesty into a world that evokes Charles Addams by way of Tim Burton. Neil discusses bringing these strange characters to life, reuniting with Shaun after years of creative collaboration that began in New Jersey's indie music scene, and how the pair transformed their shared sensibilities into one of the year's most distinctive graphic novels.