I came up on a lot of Dark Horse’s horror offerings back in the mid-90s, so I jumped at the chance to listen to some of the publisher’s current crop of horror creators talk about their ongoing and upcoming titles. Zombies, vampires, and monsters made of fingers – plus a tease about the dark new The Goon arc ahead.

First up, Dark Horse editor and writer Scott Allie told us about Abe Sapien, which takes Hellboy’s best pal out to the desert to search for answers to some of the strange things going on with his body. Allie says that they’ve been trying to go for a moodier, more classic B.P.R.D.-style story rather than the normal apocalyptic script.

Colder artist Juan Ferreyra talked about working on that series with writer Paul Tobin. He talked about the design of the monster in the series, which is a tangled mass of hands and fingers, started with the first issue which introduced a dog covered in fingers.

Colder, which features a lead character whose rapidly declining body temperature (and deteriorating corpse) is able to jump into the minds of the mentally ill and occasionally cure them. That book launched back at the tail end of 2012.

Ferreyra says that a new villain in an upcoming arc will have a thing for cutting off fingers.

He and Tobin are also paired up on the upcoming Prometheus comic, saying that he’s had to draw a few facehuggers for the book. Prometheus launches in September, and Colder in October.

Bill Morrison then talked about working on Dead Vengeance, a series he pitched all the way back in 2008. He explained the delay in bringing the book – which he was set to write and draw – to print. His work at Bongo kept him from finishing the book, but he was able to tackle it again as the writer with Stephane Roux as the artist.

The story follows a radio commentator back in the 1940’s (a proto-Walter Winchell) who crusades with the mob. When he ends up on the wrong side of the gangsters and the mayor, our hero ends up framed for the murder of his wife. When he learns that the real killer is in jail, he gets help from a witchy woman who teaches him how to astrally project himself into the future. The downside: his body is dead in the future, forcing him to go after the mob in a living corpse.

Also, remember that “One of the Road” Goon one-shot from last month? Allie hopes you enjoyed the fun and jokes in that book, because “An Occasion for Revenge,” the current arc which kicks off this week, promises a dark road for the Goon and other characters in the book.

The Strain artist Mike Huddleston talked about adapting the third novel in the series for comics and being so far ahead of the FX TV series. Dark Horse just released the first novel in an oversized hardcover recently and the third arc of Night Eternal is out in August. Huddleston promises that it works as a great jumping-on point, starting tens of thousands of years in the past.

If you’re wondering how hands-on creator Guillermo del Toro is, Huddleston says that Guillermo approves everything before it goes to press.

Criminal Macabre creator Steve Niles talked about the upcoming arc, “The Third Child” and making the lead character Cal a monster. Niles joked that he loves poking at Cal – who hates monsters – by turning him into something strange that no one yet seems to understands. He says that by the end of “The Third Child,” the currently undead, winged, vomiting Cal will be something stranger than what he’s started out as.

The first issue of Criminal Macabre: The Third Child will be out in September. A hardcover collection of his miniseries Breath of Bones is out now.