It’s summer in Wisconsin, and ticks are once again a problem. Although, generally, people worry about catching a disease from a tick bite – not that ticks the size of a couch will invade a small town.
But that’s what happens in “Tick Town,” the new horror novel by Madison author Christopher Micklos. The book is inspired by both ‘50s monster movies and ‘70s pulp horror novels, telling the story of a sleepy Midwestern town called Tomahawk Hollow that gets besieged by giant bloodsucking freaks. All the tropes of the genre – a brave sheriff, a craven mayor, horny teenagers – come into play.
“Tick Town” is in stores and online today, and Micklos has an unorthodox book launch event at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Marcus Palace. He’ll show the 1954 monster movie classic “Them!” (featuring giant ants instead of ticks), and then talk about “Tick Town” and sign copies in the theater lounge afterwards.
Micklos, who also wrote and co-directed the indie horror films “The Headmistress” and “The Nursery,” talked about bringing enormous disgusting insects to life on the page.
Why did you decide to write a novel?
During COVID, where we had these long periods where we were home alone, I started writing and publishing short stories and enjoying that process. Around the same time, I started getting interested in pulp horror. There was this book, “Paperbacks from Hell,” that made a bit of a splash. It’s a survey of 1970s and ‘80s pulp horror paperbacks, and I just found them fascinating, just the gonzo nature of these books.
I started reading them, and I just loved them. So I decided that was the road I wanted to go down, and update the genre a little bit with my own twist.
Why ticks?
Spiders have been done. Ants have been done. Crabs have been done. I started to think that ticks were interesting. I started doing some research on ticks, and they’re really horrible. We know it here in Wisconsin, but if you ever see a close-up of a tick, they’re just grotesque. They feed on you and dig into your skin. It’s pretty gross. So it seemed really ripe for horror. I’m writing a book that’s coming out in the summer, I’m in Wisconsin, it’s the perfect time for a tick story.
After making low-budget movies, did you feel a sense of freedom to be writing a novel?
Freedom is the exact word. That was one of the fun things about writing a novel as opposed to a script. When I’ve written with my partners, it’s a very collaborative process, and we’re always thinking “How would we shoot this? Where would we shoot this? How would we pull off this effect?”
Whereas in a novel, you can have a tick the size of a bull elephant come rampaging through the town. And that becomes very freeing.
Tell me about this movie screening of “Them!” you have tied to the film.
“Tick Town” was very much inspired by those ‘50s and ‘60s sci-fi classics, so I thought it would be fun to screen one on the big screen. I thought it might be fun to do that, because people to see some of the inspiration for the book. But then it might be the kind of thing that might attract people who would never go to a book event but might be interested in seeing the movie.
Finally, how did you decide exactly big the giant ticks would be?
The first couple of scenes I wrote, they were massive. And then I was like, “That might be too much.” So, basically in my book, you’ve got three levels of ticks. You’ve got the scout warrior ticks, who are like the size of a small couch. You’ve got the baby larva ticks just coming out of their eggs. And then you’ve got the big queen tick. That’s the really huge one. The cover tick.
