The world has seen quite a few Silent Hill comics. There’s been standalone series like Dying Inside and game series tie-ins like Anne’s Story. Reactions to these have been hit and miss, but most fans don’t know that there was actually one more comic the world never got to see: a completely finished, authentic adaptation of the first Silent Hill game.
The comic adaptation of the original Silent Hill was a project by British publisher Com.x, written by Jon Murphy and illustrated by Neil Googe. It would be about 50 to 60 pages long, according to various publications of the time, and would be released alongside the game in Europe. Only, it never did.
So what in the world happened to this comic? Over the years, fans have done some digging, and thanks to some insight from Googe, it’s probably exactly the reason you were thinking: Konami. It seems the regional offices came to a standoff as to who could use the comic. Japan didn’t want to pay for it, Europe wouldn’t share, so the whole thing was shelved to the satisfaction of no one. Now, these are just based on Googe’s recollections years later, so we can’t be certain of the details, but it seems a beautiful, finished comic never made it to store shelves because of some corporate egos.
The original is long lost, but some pages have been found and saved over the years. This ad for the comic can be found on the Silent Hill wiki:
The artist himself posted about the comic alongside a saved page on his Deviantart:
The image includes some fight scenes with a few monstrous, knifed-up children, Harry exploring a long hall with a flashlight, and a lot of bloody red, probably meant to represent our protagonist making his way through the violent streets of town looking for Cheryl.
A few more have been found and recorded on fan sites like Silent Hill Memories:
On the left, we have the infected doctors and nurses (with our female compatriots already looking a little more like their modern, sexy versions). The right seems to be a flashback to the Gillespie house fire; a very small text box seems to include someone’s dialogue or inner thoughts about that “religion” leading to nothing good. There’s also a full page with the nurses that includes Kaufmann and Harry Mason first meeting.
That would, unfortunately, be that… if we didn’t have the power to travel in time. Let’s go back to the past via Archive.org, and see what magazines of the era have to say.
Some of these magazines have some strange ideas about this comic. Like Extreme Playstation, Issue 20, which released in the summer of 1999. According to them, the comic would act as a “strategy guide” for the game’s mysteries; a lot of these magazines seemed to imply the comic would “explain things”. The confusion and ambiguity of Silent Hill was a common complaint for Western fans at the time, but I have a feeling the comic wasn’t going to be any more straightforward.
The full article:
Konami’s adventure bloodbath Silent Hill has inspired a graphic novel. Following the plot of the game, the 60-page novel (due for release in the Summer) doubles as a strategy guide to help unravel the mysteries of the foggy American ghost town. The novel, a limited edition collector’s item, is written and illustrated by Neil Googe, famous for his work on judge Dredd and Mercy Heights for 2000AD comic. Silent Hill: The Graphic Novel is due in August and will cost £9.99.
Some close-ups of the images. Here’s Harry, holding the lighter, walking through the first alleyway of the game (top left). There’s an ominous figure holding a lead pipe, with lightning striking in a window behind him, probably implying an armed enemy of some kind. Who isn’t clear, but it could be a doctor from the hospital (right). There’s an army of grey children closing in, probably from the first alleyway scene (middle left). Then there’s Harry walking through some dark blue halls, probably meant to be the sewer given the darkness of the area (bottom left).
German video game magazine Fun Generation had some similar things to say in their January 2000 issue. Google Translate’s version of this article says the comic would explain things more, and that the art was incredibly beautiful; they gave most of their page space to the comic itself, saving some of the long-lost media. They also describe a contest that never occurred: Konami and magazine publisher Cypress were going to give away 10 packages including both the comic and game. Here are some close-ups of the art from the magazine:
From top left, we have what looks like Harry first exploring town, possibly heading to the diner; the drive into town, and the car crash; the final boss, with Alessa’s body transforming; and the dinosaur monster bursting through the window to attack Harry. If you zoom in on the second image, you can see Harry driving, thinking, “If only Morgan could be with us too…”; the first ‘official’ name of his wife?
PlayStation Plus 47 had a long review of the game itself, and a short article about the comic further in.
It, too, seemed to imply that the comic had all the answers the game wouldn’t give:
Horror adventure Silent Hill is set to come back at you in comic form in August this year. The comic, which’ll be done by a top writer-artist team from 2000AD, will explain the story behind the game and add some new gory scenes. Expect to see spooky witch women getting incinerated, weird mutant beasts having their brains blown out and the good Dr Kaufmann from the game snorting huge lines of hallucinogenic drugs. And we’re promised that once you’ve read the comic, you’ll understand the game’s stupidly complicated ending. The comic’ll be 60 pages long, priced £9.99.
I don’t think whoever wrote this was much of a fan. However, the page does give us some unfinished art from the comic: line art of Cybil and Harry meeting.
A second article would appear in PlayStation Plus 51, also introducing the comic, as if they hadn’t done it already. At this point, it seems folks still thought the comic was coming; it was just delayed, and the price had gone up as well. The short comment is pretty similar to the previous article, but there are some new images.
Also coming out in November is the comic book of Silent Hill. If the game’s dark, bloody atmosphere grabbed you, you should check out the comic, ‘cos it’s kind of like a Director’s Cut with all the extra-nasty bits they couldn’t put in the game. Demon foetuses get chopped to bits, people snort hallucinogenic drugs left and right, and the blood-spilling just doesn’t let up. The comic, done by top 2000AD artists, also makes sense of the game’s fearsomely weird ending. It’s priced £12.99.
You might notice that the “stupidly” complicated ending is now a “fearsomely weird” ending, probably reflecting the huge wave of popularity of the game, just a few months later. Overall, it sounds a lot more positive than the previous one.
A close-up of the very small pictures, which seem to include the fight with the boss monster in the school basement:
Unfortunately, that’s all the luck I’ve had trying to dig out pieces of this lost media from the grave. There may be other gaming magazines with articles on the topic; what’s found here came from archived copies from Archive.org, and though there are plenty of magazines to comb through, it’s hardly the entire collection of the world.
Who knows? Since it seems so many magazine companies were sent files from the original comic, maybe there are more pages to be found in some game journalists’ junk drawers somewhere… everybody, start digging!
