LOS ANGELES, CA.- "Kent Williams illustrating the short stories of KWAIDAN is a match made in a dark and delicious hell. Kent’s work is kinetic and disorienting, moving and emotional. At the heart of each piece is a story, yearning to be discovered. There’s a soul in every canvas, something restless and hungry.

Many years ago, I begged him to come out from his comic book retirement to illustrate a graphic novel for THE FOUNTAIN. It was a thrilling partnership, and the results deeply moved me.

Which is why I am so excited about this collaboration between Kent and Hearn. The work of both men has a complementary sense of insatiability. But it’s not just what they have in common that makes them such a perfect match, but rather what they don’t.

In Hearn’s KWAIDAN, we find the earliest examples of what are now the stylistic signatures of the Japanese horror genre. And while the subject matter runs the gamut from scary to meditative, each of the stories share the same core tenet: it’s not about what you see, but what you don’t. Fear is always located in the unknown.
Enter Kent Williams, whose work is as direct and confrontational as the KWAIDAN stories are abstract and elusive. His art is dreamy and surreal, a mash-up of damned and divine. His subjects are almost always turned directly towards the viewer, faces unobscured by masks or shadows or slithering black hair. Their eyes are haunted - they peer out from the page and demand things from us.

It’s this dissonance between text and illustration that's so exciting. The explicit, penetrating boldness of Kent’s art is in conversation with the shadowy hidden worlds in Hearn’s stories. It’s not a distinction that clashes, but complements - a friction that produces a crackling eroticism. It’s like seeing something forbidden, but being invited to look closer. The unseen becomes seen. Down the rabbit hole we go.

Ghost stories are cultural touchstones, a founding genre of story telling. The things that scare us tell us who we were, who we are, what we might become. This collaboration between Kent and Hearn gives fear a face, a body, a soul. Their shared hunger becomes our own. Enjoy the Feast.