As a teen in England, Phil Collen was obsessed with all things American. The music, be it rock or blues, were major influences, but of particular interest to the guitarist of heavy metal glam band Def Leppard were the comics that were being imported into London shops in the 1960s.
It was in these shops that Collen picked up copies of Silver Surfer no.1 by Stan Lee and John Buscema and The Hulk No 3 by Lee and Jack Kirby. He still has those copies, stored in a case in his home in London. The Hulk was one of his favorites, as was Batman.
“I really got into the vibe of it and the culture of it,” Collen says on a Zoom from Nashville, where he is taking a short break from Leppard’s circuit as part of the Journey for the Summer Stadium Tour, which also includes acts Cheap Trick and The Steve Miller Band.
Now, Collen will be able to make his own impact on that comic culture. The guitarist, who has been with the band since its 1982 breakout Pyromania, has co-written a graphic novel that blends his musical career and his love of horror.
Titled Hysteria, the same name as the band’s 1987 album, still one of the best-selling albums of all time, the graphic will be published in spring 2025 from indie publisher Vault Comics. It will be the second title from the company’s Headshell imprint, which features sequential art collaborations with recording artists Metallica, Slash, Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy, among others.
Hysteria is a horror story dealing with the dark side of rock stardom, and even features a cameo from the band itself. It tells of Foz, the frontwoman of an indie band named Darkside who inherits her father’s estate and discovers it comes with a half-remembered guitar from her childhood. The guitar is demonic, thanks to being made from some cursed wood back in Mesopotamian times. It speaks to her, promising fame and success — and soon, it delivers. When the band’s equipment is stolen before it is due to open for the band Def Leppard, Foz, in a nod to Bruce Banner seeing the ragefull Hulk unleashed, lets loose her own dark side, so to speak, in order to get the guitar back.
“Poured out on the pages of this graphic novel is a story (Phil) couldn’t tell you in a song that takes you to places Def Leppard have never gone before with their music,” says Vault CEO Damian Wassel, who helped put together the rest of the creative team of the book.
Eliot Rahal, who previously penned the ninja vampire tale Bleed Them Dry for Vault, co-wrote the graphic novel. Alex Schlitz, who previously drew short stories in compilations such as YULE: Dreadful Tales for the Holiday Season and Sagas of the Shield Maiden Vol. 2, is handling the illustrations. Fabi Marques is the colorist and Andworld Design is lettering.
Collen said that the co-writing process was very much like working with bandmates. “It reminded me of songwriting with someone you really like,” he says. “You’d go, ‘What about this?’ And ‘What about this line? And we can follow up with this melody.’ It was very much like that, bouncing ideas, and he would run with it.”
He adds, “When you hit on something, it runs away, and you’re part of the slipstream. It was very inspiring, I gotta say.”
A similar feeling arose when working with Schlitz, who is making her graphic novel debut after working in the anthology shorts world.
Hysteria will come in retail and deluxe editions. A befitting a rock ‘n roll tour, there will be merch, including Dark Side T-shirts. And Vault also had a custom-made guitar built to Collen’s specification that the guitarist will unveil later on this summer’s tour.
Check out a preview at HollywoodReporter.com
