Q&A: James Aquilone Shares Details on the Deluxe Edition of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER

“In 1972 KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER transfixed audiences. The movie became the highest-rated TV movie in U.S. history and spawned the cult TV series starring Darren McGavin. The TV movie’s iconic screenplay was written by horror legend and novelist Richard Matheson (I Am Legend) and was based on an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice, which was released the following year. Now Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and writer James Aquilone and Monstrous Books have acquired the print rights to Kolchak and will be releasing a limited edition of Jeff Rice’s original, cult novel.”

The Monstrous Books deluxe hardcover edition of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER just went live on Kickstarter, with a limited print run of 1973 copies. Ahead of today’s campaign launch,  I caught up with James Aquilone to talk about this new edition, his love of all things Kolchak, and what’s next:

You’re starting by printing the original Jeff Rice “Night Stalker” novel, which has been out of print for quite some time. For fans of the movies / TV series that may not have read the novel, are there any major deviations from the movie that interested you?

The TV movie is pretty faithful to the novel, but there are a few differences. The biggest is that in the novel Jeff Rice is a character. The conceit is that Jeff met Carl, who then gives the real-life Vegas reporter his notes about the greatest manhunt in Las Vegas history. And throughout the book Jeff chimes in with notes and comments.

As a Kolchak fan, the novel gives you a lot more insight into Kolchak as well as the vampire Janos Skorzeny, who actually speaks in the book!

You’ve just kicked off a new Kickstarter campaign for a deluxe hardcover edition of the novel? What new additions are included in the deluxe edition?

We’ve fixed the typos, restored text that had been deleted from the original manuscript. Also Carl’s bibliography, which is a list of books he supposedly used in his vampire research, had been deleted. We put that back in. We wanted to make the book as faithful to the original as possible, save for the typos.

We’ll also have interior illustrations by Russ Braun and a foreword by Late Night With the Devil star David Dastmalchian and an afterword by Killadelphia creator Rodney Barnes, both Kolchak superfans.

Under this exciting new deal, you have the ability to reprint other Kolchak works. Can you tease your plans for the future beyond this novel?

Up next is an original Kolchak project, though I don’t want to reveal details just yet. We will be doing Kolchak comics, anthologies, and novels. Check out MonstrousBooks.com for updates.

Thanks to you, a new generation of fans will be introduced to Kolchak. Aside from the TV movies, do you have a favorite episode from the series that our readers should seek out?

I’m partial to “Chopper,” which was written by Back to the Future screenwriters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale as well as Sopranos creator David Chase.

—

To learn more and support the Kickstarter campaign, visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manbomb/original-kolchak-novel?ref=bu89cg