4th May 2013 The Emergence of the... Alan Wake Comics?

[Update #1: The two comics (in English) are part of the recently announced Humble Bundle Alan Wake Pack. The pack also includes a variety of exciting never-before-seen material. Click HERE for more information. (deal ends 29th May 2013)]

[Update #2: 11th March 2021: Since originally writing this post almost eight years ago, a number of the old links have since been removed or taken down. This page has now been fixed with updated links using Wayback Machine were available and alternative where not. The comics are also now available for free on Steam, HERE .]

On Thursday (2nd May), Senario posted a link to the first two issues of the Alan Wake comics onto the forums. The first one entitled "Night Springs" (updated with alternative) focuses on events after episode five when Barry Wheeler calls Frank Breaker. The second one focuses more on Emil Hartman who is pursued by Taken, in the issue called "Psycho Thriller" (updated with alternative). I was a little confused at first as I haven't seen or heard anything about the issues outside of the thread, and it turns out that I wasn't alone. So I went ahead and did a little investigation...

...Blade Runner?

My first thought was that Remedy was doing something similar to This House of Dreams. For those who missed it, This House of Dreams was a blog created by "Samantha" who moves into her dream house where there is a shoebox full of poems in the attic. Unfortunately, her dream house also turns out to be a touch haunted in which Alan Wake-esqe horrors emerge at night. Back in November, it was revealed that the author of the blog was Sam Lake. The site was posted on the forums by a new user (link now unavailable) who thought that it was cool and that fans would be interested...That's pretty much how the comics were posted on the forums (link now unavailable). (I'm on to you Remedy.)

There are some additional little details which further reinforced this theory including the date. This House of Dreams began in June 2012, and the creation dates for the comics (or the date of them being converted into the PDF format) is June 2012. At that time Remedy consisted of two writers, with Cam Rogers joining the team in the autumn. I presumed that both writers picked separate ways of exploring the Alan Wake universe and adding more of a backstory for characters. For Sam this was through a blog, and for Mikki this was through comic books; something which he has expressed an interest in before.

However while some of those ideas may be true, there are a few extra details which complicates matters a little further. I've been looking around, and while I can find out a few details about the comics, I can't see any release dates or links. Apparently the comics are official according to one of the artists' (Gerry Kissell) website, and they were working on it around 2011. So the connection between the comic's creation date and This House of Dreams may be a coincidence. (Mikki has worked with both artists before on Iron Sky which is due out on 28th May - link to Amazon).

Spontaneous Air Guitar Solo...It worked for the Old Gods!

It had been a fun little investigation, but that is where it ended. The comics don't seem to be available just yet, presumably waiting until the right time to be officially announced, perhaps later this year or closer to the release of Alan Wake 2? Maybe I've missed something. If there's any more details, I'll keep you updated.


(Happy Star Wars Day!)

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