Who is Bradley Golden of Second Sight Publishing?

Bradley Golden is the CEO and founder of Second Sight Publishing, an independent comic publisher that touts itself as the “home of horror, heroes, manga, and more.” Golden founded Second Sight Publishing back in 2016 as a breeding ground for interesting, weird, and creative horror comics. As he explains in an interview with Fangoria, “Our main goal is to be here for the independent comics that couldn’t get into Image and the other big companies.”

From humble roots (like all great enterprises, Second Sight was started up in a parents’ basement), Second Sight has developed a veritable cabal of comic talent and a trailing list of publications. Golden’s most recent project, horror anthology Shook: A Black Horror Anthology, is a 160-page collaboration with John Jennings Studio that compiles work from some of the best horror creators today across the genres of horror, sci fi, and thrillers. Originally launched as a Kickstarter, Shook! features works by award-winning talent sutch as Rodney Barnes (Killadelphia, The Mandalorian, Nita Hawes’ Nightmare Blog), Kevin Grevioux (Blue Marvel, Return of the Djinn, Brothers Bond), David F. Walker (Bitter Root, Black Panther Party, Nighthawk), Alverne Ball (One Nation #1, One Nation: Old Druids, Across the Tracks), Marcus H. Roberts (The Protector, The Horn Island Trilogy, SONNY), John Jennings (Kindred, Parable of the Sower), Brandon Easton (Mister Miracle, Kamen-Rider Zero One, Mosaic) and introducing actor Evan Parke (Captain America and the Winter Soldier), and Golden himself. 

As an anthology, Shook! has the freedom to let its contributors explore a wide range of stories in a wide range of art styles. From zombies to flesh-eating cockroaches, oil paintings to slick digital art, the only thing you know you’ll get from every story is a guaranteed scare. It’s in the name. As Golden explained in the Kickstarter, “John Jennings was the one who came up with the name SHOOK!… [it] perfectly portrayed the spirit of stories we all are telling…”

If there is something notable in Golden’s horror career, it’s his talent for bringing together talent. Whether within his own publishing house or in ambitious collaborations, he is not just a horror creator but a horror supporter, leading the way forward for other horror artists to get their work out there. (See the thing I actually wanted to say there was “influencer” but social media has kind of stolen and ruined that term).

As for the horror Golden himself creates, it tends towards the classic, featuring supernatural creepy crawlies and straightforward scares. Golden explains, “The horror I like to create is old school slasher or old school supernatural like The Omen or Child’s Play.” His roots are in the Southern Gothic tradition, something that seeps into Second Sight Publishing and its “southern fried horror” feel (a term coined by collaborator John Jennings). His works do not exist in a vacuum; rather, he pulls from the horror he loves as part of the creation process. Among his influences, Golden lists The House (the 1986 one, not the one that came out in 2022… although, the 2022 is a horror anthology (Bradley, I’d love your thoughts on 2022’s The House)), A Nightmare on Elm Street, Snake, The Relic. When describing his creation process, Bradley explains that These Damn Kids! exists as his company’s version of Children of the Corn while Leave on the Light took inspiration from horror film Shocker! (which, according to Golden, is some of the best horror he’s come across). Evil Lives (published in Shook!) is his take on the themes in the film The Boy. 

“What first got me into horror was A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy Krueger was something out of my worst nightmares.”

What scares Bradley Golden of Second Sight Publishing?

“I’m mostly afraid of spiders. Big time.”

Flesh-eating cockroaches descend upon a bombed out New Orleans. The children of Mississippi turn murderous. An undead serial killer terrorizes suburban New York. Horror created by Golden pulls from the image of mindless evil. It is about what happens to locations, to communities, when they’re beset with violence. It speaks to Golden’s love for old-school slasher horror, a genre he believes we’ve somewhat moved away from. “…slasher horror was so pure in the sense that it’s one person trying to escape an unstoppable force that is trying to brutally mutilate them. No extravagant plot twists or a lot of “who done it?” and “why?”. It’s straight forward.”

To a certain extent, a lot of modern horror creators have become self-conscious about the genre they create in. There’s a tendency to distance oneself from what is thought of as the banal side of horror, to righteously proclaim that actually horror can be intellectual and artistic. It’s someone who says “yeah I like horror but not like Saw or any of that stuff.” It’s a need to draw a line between the “smart” social horror of the 2010s (the kind of horror that’s finally deemed worthy of gracing the Academy Award show) and the “trashy” horror with titles like Killer Babysitters 8. In Golden’s work, both the art he makes and the art he champions, we see a rejection of this self-consciousness. 

The stories in Shook! delight in their genre. Zombies, apocalypse, demons. Their focus is never on needing to prove why the story is worth existing but on exploring the story itself. They’re visceral, equal parts dread and gore. This isn’t to say the stories don’t tackle complex or interesting themes; they just don’t feel the need to choose between doing that and showing a horrific melting panel of a vampire being impaled.

As an anthology, Shook! is successful because there’s great care given to understanding how each story can have the most punch possible. Artists are matched incredibly well to writers. Golden works with artist Flavio Cortes for Tasty!! Itchy!!, a story about a scavenging crew seeking supplies throughout a radioactive, bombed out New Orleans. The art style is that of oil paints with thick colors and murky lines, which matches the “wet, grimy” look that Golden was going for. It’s a heavily textured post-apocalyptic look that reminds me of Phil Tippett’s Mad God, one that seems almost tactile. The first thought that comes to mind is “disturbing”, the first feeling “unsettled.”

“To me, the purpose of horror is to scare you, make you feel uncomfortable. Horror is supposed to get you out of your regular mood and feeling, just for a moment, replacing it with fear and excitement. Horror allows you to be free to feel scared and hopeless at the thought of the unknown. In short, it allows you to be taken away from the reality of a harsh and predictable life and feel like anything can happen.”