These were some of the very first explorations on what the Abbey grounds - a dark yet wonderful place transported by magic from eastern Europe into the Massachusetts coastline - could look like. My initial take on the visuals happened before art direction, design, or layout began to solidify, which allowed a more playful and stylized take with freedom to find shapes and motifs that could inform the eventual look. The place needed to feel epic and mysterious, so my visual response was to focus on exaggerated shapes that could mirror the wild feel of this unnatural place. I looked at lots of Romanian and Slavic castle architecture to guide some of the shape decisions for the buildings. Eventually Dave Black, the lead artist for the Abbey at the time, came up with the idea of the building looking like it had been aggressively driven into the ground, not unlike driving a stake into a vampire’s heart, which feels quite appropriate for a bastion of resistance against evil magic. (Page 2)
©2023 Marvel