Gifune, the recipient of multiple Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominations, sits down with Eric Compton of Paperback Warrior to reveal the details of his new books, including an exclusive reveal of the wrap-around cover art for Pack Animals. It was illustrated by Zach McCain, an internationally published artist who also created the striking artwork for Gifune's 2022 horror novella Savages, published by Cemetery Dance.
“Zack, he's such a nice guy and he's a very talented guy and he's an absolute joy to work with. He's got the whole retro cover thing. When we got this deal, they asked do you have any preference? We all kind of agreed that the covers are always important, but with these kinds of books, the pulp kind of books, they're really important. They asked me if there was anyone I wanted, and I said if you can get Zach McCain. He'll nail it...and he did”, Gifune said.
When asked to elaborate on the concept of Pack Animals, Gifune explained the atmospheric nature of the story and the impact it has on the characters.
“There's a couple of werewolf novels that are kind of fun, but I essentially just said, you know what...I'm going to write a book that I would want to read about this kind of thing. And it's essentially about a group of guys who have been friends since high school, and they're middle-aged now and have families. One of them gets divorced in a kind of really messy divorce, and he decides to leave. He moves up to this town in the mountains in New Hampshire. There's this property that's kind of a steal, and he buys it. But not long after moving there, he realizes there's something wrong. There's something moving around out there that shouldn't be. And his friends all sort of coordinate to take vacations and go up and see him because they're worried about him. So they go up, and then it kind of goes from there. There's a blizzard, and they're kind of in the middle of nowhere. There's this pack of animals that are stalking them.”
Gifune, who has a love for survival horror, explained some of the elements that influenced his take on the sub-genre.
“It's kind of a homage to the survival horror novels of the seventies and eighties. And, you know, the drive-in movies and the exploitation movies of the seventies. It's just like “Savages”. One of the best compliments I had was when somebody said to me, when they were reading “Savages” it was like watching a drive-in movie back in the day, you know, which was just what I was going for.”
Watch the full Paperback Warrior interview with the author HERE.
Preorder the book HERE.
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