
Bring on any form of entertainment and creative escapism that gives a subtle nod to American politics, but which also enables us to feel far, far away from our doom-scrolling reality with a heavy dose of sci-fi.
Enter – 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’.): HOWL, a witty bohemian sci-fi that can best be described as ‘The Marvelous 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 in a press release.
“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. 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?
To answer these questions and more, we had a chat with Alisa herself, to learn more about what fans can expect in the HOWL series, her feminist take on a well-known trope, and what makes this work her most personal yet.

You have described HOWL as your most personal work yet. Can you tell us more about what makes it so personal to you?
In one sense, this is my mother’s story of being in her early twenties and thinking she had found a brilliant, witty, literary soulmate in my father, only to discover that once they were living together he shape-shifted into a fairly typical 1950’s man. She was rebellious and intellectual and bohemian, she was living with my father in Greenwich Village out of wedlock and working as an editor, and still she wound up doing the cooking and cleaning and shopping.
I just took the “shapeshifting” idea and made it science fictional. Your boyfriend isn’t just aloof and less affectionate and behaving oddly — he may well be an alien disguised as your boyfriend.

You’ve also said that this series is a feminist take on the ‘frustrated beatniks on a rampage’ trope. How have you made it more feminist, and why was it important to you to create a feminist perspective for the series?
I was still in my twenties when I took a writing course at Columbia with Joyce Johnson, who has written about her time as the girlfriend of Jack Kerouac, one of the original Beatniks. Her experiences of being relegated to the sidelines reminded me of my mother’s stories of her high school and college years, but also of some of my own experiences.
The movie Grease, which was about the fifties but came out in the fall of my freshman year of high school, didn’t question the stereotypes of Bad Girl vs. Cheerleader so much as it re-popularized them. My mother always identified with Rizzo, by the way. She even showed me how to roll up the sleeves of my tee shirts, the way the cool girls did.
That’s why, in part, Ziva has to get on a motorcycle in time for the big showdown at the end of the series. There’s a little Rizzo in her.

Art and creativity can often become healing and helpful ways for fans to make sense of current political realities. With political themes interwoven into the series, how do you hope HOWL will allow readers to make sense of what is happening in 2025?
It’s incredibly difficult to make sense of anything in 2025, because we are swimming in it. I have a lot of faith in the healing attributes of art and creativity, but even more faith in humor. Humor requires mental reframing and being able to shift perspective, and that is something we should all practice doing regularly.

What was it like to work with Mauricet, and what can you tell us about your collaboration? What was your creative process like together?
Mauricet and I talk on the phone pretty frequently, so the scripts I write and the art he sends me are part of an ongoing conversation. We get excited by a lot of the same things, but when we approach something from a different perspective, well, that’s where humor comes into play. I consider him a friend and not just a collaborator.
What were the biggest challenges working on HOWL, and how did you navigate through them?
My biggest challenges always come from self-doubt, which slows me down. Talking frequently with Mauricet and also with my editor, Tom Peyer, kept me from getting too much in my head. They both keep me focused on the fun of creating a scene, and stop me from thinking, “Is this any good?” Those four words are just poison to me. I am allergic to them. Much better to ask, “Does this work as well as it could?”

The series is being billed as a cross between ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ meets ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, which is quite the juxtaposition! How do these titles (or others!) inspire HOWL, from your perspective?
Oh, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956 and 1978 especially. John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing about a protean alien that can look like anyone and anything, and also his 1984 movie Starman, about a wonderfully tender alien who takes on the form of young Karen Allen’s dead husband, a terrifically hunky Jeff Bridges. Bucket of Blood, a camp masterpiece of beatnik artists gone bad by Roger Corman.
And also The Return of Martin Guerre, a 1983 film based on a true story of a medieval man who says he is Martin, who went away as a youth, leaving his wife behind. The man who says he is Martin Guerre looks like him and knows things only he would know, but seems very different, and some begin to suspect that he is not who he says he is. For his wife, though, this new husband is a vast improvement over the old.
All of these were definitely in the mix.

Who are your writing inspirations, and in the same vein what do you want your storytelling to inspire in your fans and readers?
I adore the blend of horror, emotional catharsis and high camp that Grady Hendrix writes, and the way he reinvents old tropes. In comics, I will always read anything by Mark Russell. I love Charlotte Stein’s romantic weirdness in all its many forms — there’s no genre she hasn’t tackled, although these days she’s gone more rom com. And then there’s TV writers, like Phoebe Waller Bridge (‘Fleabag’) and Debora Cahn (‘The Diplomat’). I suppose I want to do what they do — write at the top of my intelligence, write with humor and brio and inventiveness, but also with emotional authenticity.
What do you hope readers will take to heart when reading HOWL in our current turbulent political times and ever-changing world?
Trust your gut. Value human connections, even when you’re not 100% certain that the person is human. Study history, so you can recognize patterns. And go make some art, just for the hell of it, like a beatnik.
Buy your copy of HOWL Issue #1 by clicking HERE. See more of Alisa Kwitney’s work on her website and follow her on Facebook, Instagram and X(Twitter).
