New horror comic Creeping plays on social media fad challenges

Creeping
(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

Fresh off the reveal of a secret room behind one person's bathroom mirror on TikTok, Dark Horse Comics is introducing an even creepier new fad: Creeping. It is an online challenge to spend the night in a frightening location - an abandoned house, a poky cemeter😼y, a foreboding cave... whatever. Would you do it?

For now the challenge is fictiꦑonal, but it's the subject of a new graphic novel titled by writer Zack Keller and artist Doug Wheatley. Based🌸 on an original story by Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson, Creeping mixes thrill-seeking with social media into a modern-day horror story that might inspire imitators.

"I caught the end of a news clip about college kids staying overnight in an abandoned house and that got me thinking about a new story - a fad in which people sought out the scariest places to camp while live-streaming themselves," Richardson says in the announcement. "The fad, 'creeping', turns into a competition as each group seeks to outdo the last. What could be mo🌊re frightening than an abandoned asylum avoided by locals for 100 years? Of course, this location has a secret…"

at Dark Horse. Keller quickly picked up on the idea, and Dark Horse connected him with Wheatley, a long-time ar✨tist at the publisher. 

The Creeping OGN goes on sale October 13 in 𝔉comic shops and on digital platforms, and debuts in bookstores on October 26꧑.

There are many digital comics reading platforms out there… but which one's the best for what you want to read? Check out Newarama's guide to the best digital comics readers for Android and iOS devices.

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awar🍷ds, the Haไrvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)