Amber Benson and Christopher Golden are taking readers to rural Ireland for their next horror story. The longtime collaborators are teaming with artist Gavin Fullerton on The Heir, a five-issue folk horror series from Mad Cave Studios, Bleeding Cool reports. The Heir #1 is scheduled for Wednesday, January 13, 2027.
A funeral instead of an engagement
The story follows Dani on her first trip to Ireland with her fiancé, Conor. They planned to announce their engagement to his family, but the visit turns into a funeral for his grandfather instead. From there, Dani is pulled into family secrets, a local history of child abductions and the darker side of Irish folklore. Murder and curses follow, along with a race to save someone she loves.
Benson and Golden say the tone draws on 1970s psychological horror such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, with family curses, sacrifice and creatures in the woods. The pair first developed The Heir as a possible film before deciding it worked better as a comic.
The team
Benson is best known for playing Tara Maclay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She and Golden, a Bram Stoker Award-winning novelist who co-created the Outerverse comics with Mike Mignola, also co-wrote and co-directed the Audible series Slayers: A Buffyverse Story and worked together on Ghosts of Albion.
Fullerton, who is Irish, drew The Closet with James Tynion IV and Bog Bodies with Declan Shalvey, plus his own one-shot Tuatha. He said the project let him draw on local people and places. Juancho! handles colors and Becca Carey letters the series. Covers come from Jamie McKelvie, Mike Mignola, Rebekah Isaacs and Chuma Hill.
Creator-owned horror has been having a strong run lately, including Sean Gordon Murphy and Corin Howell’s Lake Totem. If The Heir sounds like your kind of story, ask your local comic shop to add #1 to your pull list ahead of its January release.
