Today marks the 60th anniversary of Dark Shadows‘ television debut, so I’m proud to announce my next book! This has taken me a few years to write, and I’m stoked to at last be able to reveal its existence to fandom. Chinbeard Books has given life to The Collins Family Album, my 60th-anniversary celebration of Dark Shadows, illustrated by my enormously talented friend Aleah Shockley.
This volume chronicles every member of the Collins family from every iteration of the franchise–TV shows, movies, comics, novels, audios. More than 400 Collinses in total, which is a lot of damaged people. Coming this fall, with a truly breathtaking cover designed by artist Robert Hammond and publisher Barnaby Eaton-Jones, and with brilliant essays by Penny Dreadful, Ansel H. Faraj, Stuart Manning, and Craig Hurd-McKinney.
From the publisher…
“THE COLLINS BLOOD ALWAYS HAD A RATHER PERSISTENT STRENGTH…”
We, at Chinbeard Books, are delighted to announce – on the exact date the TV series Dark Shadows aired on American television sixty years ago – the upcoming publication of a very unique tome.
THE COLLINS FAMILY ALBUM
Written and researched by Rich Handley
Illustrated by Aleah Shockley
Designed by Robert Hammond
This is a book referenced and seen on screen, during the show’s entire run (1966-1971), whenever a bit of family history was sought or needed. But, we’ve brought it to life!
Every family has its demons. This one has vampires, too.
In 1966, Dan Curtis and Art Wallace introduced something more than just a typical soap opera. Alongside the serialized storylines, cliffhanger endings, breathless romances, and mustache-twirling villains one would naturally expect from a soap, Dark Shadows added ghosts, vampires, witches, warlocks, werewolves, zombies, revenants, poltergeists, mythical entities, artificial humans, immortals, time travel, parallel universes, and more. It was a veritable monster fest of horror, science fiction, and classic literature, presented on daytime television and wrapped up in a Gothic Jane Eyre-inspired landscape.
The Collins clan rivaled their Addams and Munster contemporaries for sheer creepiness, kookiness, mysterious spookiness, and all-together ookyness—and 1966’s Dark Shadows was just the tip of the Gothic iceberg. The franchise has been rebooted multiple times, first as a pair of 1970s theatrical films, and then as a 1988 stage play, a short-lived 1991 television reboot, a 2004 TV pilot, and director Tim Burton’s 2012 film reimagining.
Each iteration has expanded the Collins lineage. And the many novels, comics, and audios, from numerous publishers, have added a plethora of new family members to the mix. The bloodline includes murderers, pirates, slavers, warlocks, witches, and sundry undead. No matter the century, generation, reality, or medium, the cursed and broken Collinses have endured and unleashed boundless horrors… and more than their share of day-drinking melodrama.
Though canceled decades ago, Dark Shadows remains an immortal force that enslaves viewers in its thrall. The illustrious “Collinses of Collinsport” are at the heart of every iteration, and The Collins Family Album chronicles more than 400 members of the family. Many you’ll be familiar with, but others you might not be. So step into a monstrous and macabre family reunion like no other. Take a journey that will bring you to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea, high atop Widows’ Hill… to a house called Collinwood.
This will be a crowdfunded entity, via Indiegogo, and available to pledge for on July 30th. A deluxe, A4-sized hardback, of over 300 pages and fully illustrated.
Keep your eyes peeled for the link, coming soon!
