Jordan Kroeger is a Kansas City comic creator. His serialized comic Tiger Boy Versus is available on his Patreon here; I highly suggest you check it out! For a couple bucks a month you get weekly pages, commentaries, and other exclusive material.
Ian McGinty is an American comic book writer, and artist known for his work on Adventure Time, Bee and PuppyCat and Invader Zim. He is best known for his creator owned comic Welcome to Showside.
Survival in the Arctic wilderness carries its own unique set of treacheries, but nothing like the Horror that lurks in It's In The Snow...
GI: It’s In The Snow takes us deep into the frozen tundra to explore its terrors.
Excluding The Thing (since it’s an easy go-to and its awesomeness is already
well-documented), what’s your favorite “subzero Horror” story, in any medium?
IM: Obviously, The Thing and its prequel are two of my favorite Arctic-style horror
tales, but I’m also fascinated by creature features based in Russian folklore; or even true stories,
like Chernobyl mutations. An art school friend of mine created portions of a fascinating video game
centered on the [Chernobyl] blast site and encountering mutated dogs, bears, eventually humans.
It never got completed due to budget constraints. There are also several movies in that vein, like Chernobyl Diaries.
I take a lot of inspiration from general mutation-themed films like The Deadly
Mantis, the more recent Blood Glacier, or Devil’s Pass, which sort of addresses
what we focused on for It’s in the Snow.
JK: I'll cheat and say the X-Files episode "Ice", since it's basically The Thing.
GI: Were you an X-Files devotee back in the day, Jordan?
JK: Yeah, I was 5 or 6 when X-Files came out and it got me super into aliens and
conspiracy stuff. I watched it most weeks, and later on revisited the whole series.
GI: What were your other Horror "gateways"?
JK: I have an older brother who introduced me to all of the horror classics growing
up, so I’m not sure what my particular gateway was, but I saw The Thing, Alien,
Friday the 13th and Evil Dead pretty early on.
IM: Not necessarily “subzero Horror,” but I’ve always been influenced by the Alien
franchise; Kurt Vonnegut (I guess Cat’s Cradle is technically a frozen nightmare!);
and many animated shows of the stranger variety, like Invader Zim, of which I
completed work on the film a year ago.
GI: Let’s assume there’s not any Lovecraftian monstrosities lurking beneath the
surface; do you stand a better chance of survival in a winter apocalypse or
stranded in a desert?
IM: I just finished a good book about the Donner Party, The Indifferent Stars Above,
which focuses in great detail on not only the families involved, the journey and
the pioneer life--and of course the cannibalism--but sheds light on how
harrowing it would be to find yourself stranded in sub-zero temperatures during
an extremely harsh winter. What stuck out to me, personally, was how easy it was
to separate from your party with no way to determine where you are.
What makes me imagine this situation would be worse than being stranded in a
desert is the physical difficulty of trudging through snow; the constant melting of
snow into your clothes; the lack of game or viable vegetation to consume; and
snow-blindness, where the snow literally damages your eyes from the reflective
light. Of course, you have snow so you have water, but the lack of food and
hypothermia draws out your death more than dying of thirst in the desert.
There’s even a phenomenon where hypothermia constricts your veins to the
point you feel unbearably hot. People would strip off their clothes and burrow
into the snow, logs, whatever was available.
GI: You have clearly thought about dying in the snow a lot, Ian.
IM: ...Yeah. I’m gonna say a winter apocalypse is worse. Plus, I just moved from
California, where it was 70 degrees, to Maryland, where it’s about 30 degrees; so
I’m kinda feeling what our characters might have been feeling, to a lesser
degree. I, however, do have a kitchen and a heater, so it’s not so bad!
JK: I can see myself boarded up in a shack in a winter apocalypse drinking whiskey.
Pretty sure I'd die ten minutes into being stranded in the desert.
GI: How have you been coping with the 2020 shitstorm?
JK: I work a desk job and have two small kids so every day is 2020 for me. Just
kidding… kind of.
IM: I’m bored being inside all the time, but I’d rather be safe and others be safe.
Wear a mask!
GI: Jordan: you and Kristofor Harris (who appears elsewhere in GREEN INFERNO) are
both from the Kansas City area. KC’s got quite a kickass Comics scene that
doesn’t necessarily get (or need!) the attention that some other places do. What
are y’all drinking in the water there that makes it such an indie comics haven?
JK: Yeah, me and Kristofor are friends! I don’t know why KC has such a great comics
scene; I guess we all kind of feed off of each other and inspire others to join in on
the fun. Or maybe it’s the Boulevard beer.
GI: GREEN INFERNO is sub-titled, The World Celebrates Your Demise. How do you
feel your piece relates to this sentiment?
IM: While I think of It’s in the Snow as more of a blue inferno, I structured the story to
have the environment actively be the monster, instead of a singular force, be it a
beast, person or otherwise. The world--in this case, the snow itself--celebrates the
destruction of the band of survivors in their territory and relishes in tearing apart a
small strand of humanity already unsure of their future.
Essentially, people don’t control the world, as much as we may want to; the
world controls us.