Nearly every election cycle in the United States features a candidate or candidates who prey on the fear of the electorate to garner votes. One of the weapons in their fear arsenals is an appeal to a longing for “the good ol’ days,” a period in which values were strong and steadfast and morality wasn’t ambiguous. What those candidates never say–or maybe they don’t know–is that the time they are describing never actually existed. For one, the value system that is referenced longingly is infected with misogyny, racism, and bigotry, propping up a majority at the expense of a minority that many in power would rather didn’t exist. They point to “wholesome” entertainment that featured a middle America that was pure fiction and fabricated to sell air time for breakfast foods and cigarettes.
But not all consumable media was The Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best. While not perfect–and perfect is, of course, subjective–science fiction was a genre that didn’t shy away from commenting on the the fears of the day. Whether it be commercialization, censorship, or losing one’s identity to the greater machine, sci-fi let creators comment on then-controversial topics in hopes of conveying a message and not drawing ire from the government or some of the disapproving populace.
Writer Alisa Kwitney and artist Mauricet are taking those themes and tropes and running with them in their new comic series HOWL, debuting this week from AHOY Comics. In HOWL, 20-something Ziva Rodblatt faces the hurdles of a disapproving mother, of wondering what to do with her life, with sour relationships–and a possible nefarious plot not of this world. In an extensive interview, Alisa Kwitney was kind enough to to give a deep dive into the genesis of HOWL, the science fiction influences for the series, working with HOWL‘s artist Mauricet, and how a lost menorah prompted her to interview her mother about her life.
One thing that Kwitney returned to often in our chat is her examination of 1950’s America and the push-pull of reality vs. fantasy that we see in that era’s popular culture. Kwitney’s insights into how the McCarthy era impacted the sci-fi genre and how we are seeing 1950’s culture mirrored in 21st century of America demonstrate the thought and care that she’s poured into this project, and the finished project exemplifies that. I teach high school history and the first issue lingered with me and made me reconsider how I approach my own lesson plans when addressing the 1950’s. HOWL #1 is a hitch in your chest that remains long after putting it aside–as the best sci-fi tends to do–both in the narrative and how it all feels unnervingly familiar.

HOWL #1 cover A
FreakSugar: Before we get into the book itself, what is the genesis of HOWL?
Alisa Kwitney: I’m going to give you a very long-winded answer, the fullest version, which I’ve never told anyone else.
Seven or eight years ago, I discovered that my mom had given away a Hanukah menorah she had owned as a young woman, back in the 1950’s. At first, I became obsessed with finding the menorah, which would probably have been done in mid-century brutalist style (think raw, minimalist, poured metal with jagged bits). I actually burst into tears about the loss of the menorah, which I didn’t even properly remember.
What I was really mourning, though, was the beginning of my mother’s long, slow decline. Once I realized this, I started to interview my mother about the period that preceded my conception and birth — the days when my twenty-something parents were young and living in a cold water walk up flat in Greenwich Village. (My parents married and moved to the Upper West Side before splitting when I was very young, and I didn’t grow up with my father, the science fiction writer Robert Sheckley.)
In the beginning, I knew that I wanted to write about the gap between the futurism and social satire of fifties science fiction and the immense blind spot the (mostly male) writers had about the females of the species. When I talked to my friend and former VERTIGO boss Karen Berger about the project, she suggested that the piece should actually be science fiction.
From there, HOWL came together, passing through a few titles along the way — FUTUREWIFE, FLESH & FUNGUS and FLESHPUPPETS, to name a few. I got to riff on my favorite fifties science fiction tropes, as well as some seventies influences, especially Invasion of the Body Snatchers (78) and The Thing.

HOWL #2 cover by Mauricet
FS: What is the conceit of HOWL? What can you tell us about the characters we’ll meet?
AK: Well, we begin in 1957, with Ziva Rodblatt, 21, and her friend Frida on their way to a class at NYU. A sophisticated older redhead is also passing by, and while none of them notice (no one who actually lives in NYC ever looks up) a flying spaceship passes overhead, spraying spores.
Two years later, we find Ziva living in a Greenwich Village cold-water walk up with her boyfriend, Bert Jeckley in 1959, at the very epicenter of Beat culture. Her mother, Bubbeh, surprises her with an unannounced visit, and is shocked and appalled by evidence of her daughter’s bohemian lifestyle, and even more upset to learn that Ziva has dropped out of NYU. While Ziva defends her choices, she secretly wonders if her mother has a point.
But while Ziva thinks her biggest challenges are disapproving mothers and deadbeat boyfriends, a far more sinister threat is about to present itself. You see, Bert is part of a circle of science fiction writers, the Scylla Club, who are battling the usual writerly challenges: Scrambling for work, struggling with writer’s block and imposter syndrome. But when one of the group introduces Bert to his new therapist, Myrtle Morel, the sophisticated redhead gives “imposter syndrome” a whole new meaning…

HOWL #3 cover by Mauricet
FS: I love how you describe the various elements that make up HOWL: the Corman influence, the desire for a feminist version of beatnik rampage, your mother’s influence and stories. How did these various puzzle pieces fit when bringing them together?
AK: Hmm. I guess you could say that Ziva’s nascent feminism and the conflict between her urge to rebel against her mother and her desire to live up to her mother’s expectations are the backbone of this story. Body horror and humor are the fleshy carapace that encases it and brings it to life.
FS: What was it about the 1950’s that made you want to use it as the framework for your story?
AK: The late fifties was a really interesting time in New York City, culturally and intellectually. You have this real tension between the conservative, sentimental, grey-flannel suited mainstream and the progressive, cynical, post-nuclear counterculture. The one thing both sides had in common was paranoia and the sense that an enemy was about to pounce, either from without or within. When I was a kid, in the seventies, everyone was fascinated by the 1950’s, but it seems to me that if ever a time rhymed with that decade, it’s this one. Turn on Fox News and look at how the women present themselves — heavily made up and girdled, in tight shift dresses and heels. And look at the surge in UFO reports. Either the zeitgeist is repeating itself, or the aliens are getting increasingly worried that we’re about to blow ourselves up again.

HOWL #4 cover by Mauricet
FS: I teach high school U.S. history, and you nail that time period perfectly. As you said in the press release, that era is not all Leave It to Beaver. What do you wish more people knew about the McCarthy era and that period of paranoia?
AK: Well, first of all, that everyone was reeling from the fear of nuclear war and that the homey, safe, crinoline and apron fantasy of Leave It to Beaver was a deliberate retreat from reality. It’s as though someone from the future looked at Harlequin Christmas Rom Coms and said, Wow, people were so naive in the twenty twenties.
I also think that this current mistrust of experts rhymes with the 1950’s. Richard Hofstadter’s book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life reflected themes I remember my mother telling me about — a sort of baked-in mistrust of intellectuals as pretentious, immoral and alienated from the truly important things in life. When you look at a lot the Hollywood musicals of the fifties, you see intellectuals and experts depicted as foolish eggheads in need of good smack down (as Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor do to the speech therapist in Singin’ in the Rain) or sexually and emotionally repressed women in need of a makeover and a good shtupping (Funny Face, Silk Stockings).
That said, I also have a healthy distrust of experts. It wasn’t that long ago that medical experts were insisting that babies didn’t need painkillers during medical procedures.

HOWL #5 cover
FS: Following up on that, what makes the McCarthy era ripe for spinning sci-fi stories?
AK: We look at the 1950’s as a cleaner, nicer, simpler time. It’s just so much fun to subvert that. Also, writing about the present by writing about the past allows a writer to get lost in fun research, and to avoid the dreaded on-the-nose author’s message moments.
FS: Mauricet’s art is gorgeous and expertly gives the vibe of unnerving perfection that is essential for a story like this. What has the collaboration process been like on the book?
AK: Mauricet and I start a project with a lot of talking about movies and shows and comics and influences. By the time we’re stuck in, it feels almost telepathic. After each issue is finished, we go over the places where he has added or subtracted a panel and adjust dialogue as needed.
FS: In many respects, some of the hard-fought rights of women and people of color are being infuriatingly rolled back in the U.S. Do you see any of this reflected in HOWL?
AK: I sure hope so. Taking away women’s ability to access abortion rights penalizes all women, but has a greater impact on women with fewer resources — especially women of color and immigrants.
I also hope that the unapologetic Jewishness of the main characters, and casual mention of Masada, do something to counteract the latest mutant form of anti-Semitism. Because whether or not a person approves of the actions of the American or Russian or Chinese or Saudi or Israeli governments, it is not all right to randomly attack Americans or Russians or Chinese or Saudi or Israeli citizens. It’s not okay to deface graveyards and houses of worship, or to make foreign students feel unwelcome or unsafe as they attempt to acquire an education.
FS: What has been your favorite part of working on HOWL so far?
AK: Watching Mauricet’s pages come in. Always my favorite part.
FS: Are there any other projects you have coming down the pike you’d like to discuss?
AK: Mystik U, my funny supernatural college book, is being released in a new YA format in early March. And Mauricet and I are plotting our next collaboration, which might connect the universes of GILT and HOWL.
FS: Is there anything you can tease about what we can expect in the miniseries?
AK: Hmm…let me just say that I was inspired by the work of practical effects wizard Rob Bottin in the 1982 version of Carpenter’s The Thing, and Mauricet just exploded with creativity.
FS: If you had a final pitch for HOWL, what would it be?
AK: Tired of kvelling about the same old handful of comics, books, films and TV shows that everyone knows about? Read HOWL and enjoy the subtle pleasure of telling your friend group about something really obscure!
FS: Not really a question, but is the title a nod to Ginsberg and the era?
AK: A little this, and a little nod to the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers point and screetch.
HOWL #1 debuts this Wednesday, January 15, 2025, from AHOY Comics.
From the official press release for the series:
The latest collaboration from novelist and comics writer Alisa Kwitney (The Sandman Presents, G.I.L.T.) and artist Mauricet (Star Wars Adventures, G.I.L.T.) is HOWL, a witty bohemian sci-fi that can best be described as Mrs. Maisel meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The five-issue series is set in Greenwich Village in the late ‘50s, home of poets, artists, musicians, sci-fi writers, their put-upon partners — and the extraterrestrial spores that are secretly taking them over. HOWL is the latest series from AHOY Comics, the Syracuse-based independent publisher known for its acclaimed creators, witty satires, and commitment to risk-taking storytelling. Issue #1 will feature an A cover by Mauricet as well as a B cover by renowned illustrator and painter Bill Koeb and land in stores on January 15, 2025.
“I wrote this series for anyone who loved the 1959 Roger Corman movie Bucket of Blood and thought, When is someone going to do a feminist version of the ‘frustrated beatniks on a rampage’ trope?” said writer Alisa Kwitney. “This may be my most personal work yet, as it is loosely based on my mother’s stories and letters about the period when she lived in the Village with my father, the science fiction writer Robert Sheckley (former Omni editor, author of The Tenth Victim and unacknowledged influence on Douglas Adams). Mixed in with all this family lore is my lifelong love of pod-people stories, especially all versions of Body Snatchers, Starman and The Thing.”
In most of late 1950s America, Senator McCarthy is hunting down communists and teenagers are making out at the drive-in while B-movies warn about flying saucers and alien invasions — but in the bohemian Greenwich Village, it’s a different story. It is there, amongst the turtlenecked, sandal-wearing, reefer-smoking free-thinkers, intellectuals and artists, that we find the members of Scylla, a boys’ club of brilliant science fiction writers and editors. Yet even as these futurists sip their cocktails and spin tales of life on other planets, they do not suspect that the real aliens are already here among us, planting the seeds — or rather, the spores — of their empire.
Aliens are the last thing on 23-year-old beatnik and proto-feminist Ziva Rodblatt’s mind — she’s too busy trying to keep her mother from discovering that she is living out of wedlock with her boyfriend. But when said boyfriend falls under the sway of celebrity therapist Myrtle Morel, she begins to grow suspicious. Why is Bert sneaking out before dawn to meet with strangers? Why does he have a sudden taste for cream of mushroom soup? And Ziva is not the only one who believes that she is living with someone who looks familiar, but is unmistakably and disturbingly different. All of a sudden, there seem to be a lot of writers, artists and musicians falling under Myrtle’s spell. But what can one feisty college-drop-out do to fend off the alien invasion?
“This is not my first collaboration with Alisa, but it’s certainly our most accomplished and ambitious work so far,” said artist Mauricet. “As an artist, I love to be dragged out of my comfort zone and be challenged — but boy, was I in for a real adventure here! Trying to be accurate and nail this weird time period between 1950s conservatism and the beginning of the swinging 60s without falling into clichés was really something. HOWL is science fiction horror, a genre I wasn’t at ease with at first — but Alisa convinced me I was capable and turns out she was right. I do have this genre in me and, without even knowing it, my main influence was probably John Carpenter’s The Thing. How convenient, as you’ll see if you give our book a try!”
“The Fifties have this reputation, probably from sitcoms, as staid, conformist, prosperous — oh, man, it’s definitely from sitcoms, because you couldn’t write Naked Lunch in the Leave It to Beaver house,” says editor Tom Peyer. “In HOWL, Kwitney and Mauricet reveal the essential truth about this fascinating time: that it was as much a bubbling cauldron of change and fear and danger and weirdness as any other moment in American history.”
“You might say I’ve repurposed the ‘alien hidden among us’ trope to reflect my own concerns,” added Kwitney. “Back in the fifties, the prevalent fear was of a fifth column of nefarious outsiders pretending to be one of us. After spending years dealing with a family member’s dementia, I wanted to explore the psychological horror that comes from watching someone change so profoundly that they seem like a stranger. Since I can’t take horror straight up, I like to serve it with humor — the jello shot method.”
“This series sums up without a doubt for me the beauty and magic of what a real collaboration should always be,” added Mauricet. “Alisa and I — we ‘click!’ It all seems like a dance where each of the dancers knows the steps the other one is going to take. And working together under the AHOY banner again makes me feel like this is the best part of my 30-something years long career so far. I hope you as a reader will enjoy the ride too. I sure do.”
HOWL will be published by AHOY Comics, the independent publisher perhaps best known for SECOND COMING, a controversial satire by Mark Russell, Richard Pace and Leonard Kirk in which Jesus Christ resumes his holy mission; JUSTICE WARRIORS, the acclaimed political satire by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson; and BABS, the profane sword-and-sorcery satire by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. The company is the brainchild of journalist and satirist Hart Seely (publisher), an award-winning reporter whose humor and satire has appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio; comics writer Tom Peyer (editor-in-chief); and cartoonist Frank Cammuso (chief creative officer). AHOY Comics launched five years ago with four acclaimed comic book magazine titles featuring full length comic book stories, poetry, prose fiction, and cartoons.
HOWL #1 will be on sale in comic shops everywhere on January 15, 2025.
About the Creators
Alisa Kwitney is a former DC Comics staff editor and the author of the Eisner-nominated mini-series Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold. Her novels have appeared on The New York Times New and Noteworthy in Paperback list and Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program. She has an MFA from Columbia University and has taught writing at Fordham University and McDaniel and Manhattanville Colleges. Her mother, Ziva Kwitney, wrote non-fiction for Ms Magazine, Cosmopolitan and the New York Times. Her father, Robert Sheckley, was the author of the novel The Tenth Victim, which became a cult classic film. He is considered a master of dark, funny science fiction, and is best remembered for his short stories. Much of his best work was done in the late fifties and sixties, when he was living with Ziva in Greenwich Village.