Inside John Carpenter’s Cathedral: Sandy King Carpenter on Comics, Music and Horror – NYCC 2026

At the 2026 New York ComicCon, I had a chance to speak with Sandy King Carpenter, the editor of Storm King Comics (and the wife of John Carfpenter) about the Storm King line and John Carpenter’s new graphic novel and music album, Cathedral.

Q: Tell us a little bit about Storm King comics, please. 

Sandy King Carpenter: Storm King Comics is the John Carpenter comic brand. We’ve been in business now about 12 years, and if you like John Carpenter movies, the odds are you’ll like what we put out as comics. It has that sensibility, that texture, and that quality.

Q: What can you tell us about Storm King’s newest graphic novel, Cathedral?

Sandy King Carpenter: Cathedral is John’s first graphic novel. He’s written other comics, but not a full graphic novel. And he did it in conjunction with an album, also called Cathedral. So the music is key to scenes throughout the comic.

Q: When you’re trying to put together a comic and a graphic novel together, does that add any extra challenges to the world of publishing? 

Sandy King Carpenter: The only thing that’s a little nightmarish about having an album and a graphic novel that you want to drop together is getting the timing right for the release because record labels are used to releasing on a slightly different schedule. And then you wind up in a bit of a tug of war with everyone saying, we need these things now. And then you try and make sure all the art matches, and everybody has exclusive vinyls for whatever’s happening at all the different places. It’s a little challenging when you add the number of variant covers, exclusive vinyls, etc.

Q: What’s the reaction been like to him in the comic book world versus the movie world? 

Sandy King Carpenter: John Carpenter fans are, I think, always rabid for more John Carpenter. But when we did the first comic, Asylum, the comic world looked at us as interlopers, and I had to convince them we came in peace. And we knew some of the comic people from being at conventions and movies.

And so, to me, it all made sense to do what we were doing. To the rest of the world, not so much. But why should we care about that? We’ve got fans. The fans showed up, and then when we started winning awards with the first comic, I went, I’d never won award for anything.

Q: Anything else you’d like to tell the world about Storm King comics that they need to know?

Sandy King Carpenter: I think we have comics for every age group. We have comics for little kids. We have comics for middle grade. We have comics for young adults and adults, because horror is an allegorical platform. It’s how you address your fears. It’s why they were the first movies ever made. And I think that we can provide a good experience for anybody.