Early on, even before
The Bone Orchard Mythos was announced, Jeff Lemire described the project as "the most ambitious thing [Andrea Sorrentino] and I have done together." During their first creator-owned work together,
Gideon Falls, Lemire discovered that despite the complexity of the project, he and Sorrentino bounced ideas off of each other in a way that felt effortless, which made him feel like they could tackle a project even more challenging. The idea for
The Bone Orchard Mythos sprang from Sorrentino, who wanted to do darker stories, but expansive like
H. P. Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos; individual stand-alone stories which share a common mythology. Sorrentino also wanted to do different formats, miniseries, maxiseries, original graphic novels, and more. He described the series as "the kind of stories I want to read as a graphic novel and comics fan, and the kind of things I want to draw as an artist." Part of the appeal of doing different stories was that it opened up more opportunities to experiment with his style and stay fresh. It was essential to both creators though that any story could act as an entry point to the series, that they could be read in any order and still make sense. The connections between the books are an additional feature for more dedicated readers. Over a period of a year before the series was announced, Lemire and Sorrentino worked out the whole story, plotted out in chronological order. However, they do not plan to ever tell the full story, but rather show "enough" of the story that readers get a sense of it, told non-chronologically through the various stand-alone stories. It is designed to be interpreted. This approach was inspired by the work of
David Lynch. with further details emerging over the following week from the social media channels of Lemire, Sorrentino, and Image Comics. Three titles were revealed in the initial announcement (
The Passageway,
Ten Thousand Black Feathers, and
Tenement) along with promise of more in 2023 and beyond. Originally a different story was meant to be the first, but when Lemire could not get that story to work, he came up with the idea for
The Passageway and wrote the script in a week. For Lemire, it was essential that the story be character-driven, rather than driven by its concept. Sorrentino felt
The Passageway was the right story to establish
The Bone Orchard Mythos since it was about the "passageway" to supernatural horrors of their universe, both for readers and the characters in the story.
Tenement Tenement was the last of the three titles revealed in the original announcement. Though it was at first slated to be an
original graphic novel, and later it was further expanded to ten issues with a double-length first issue. This was so readers could spend time with the seven leads and invest in their stories.
Tenement #1 was released on June 21, 2023. When Lemire and Sorrentino were originally discussing possible stories to act as the reader's introduction to
The Bone Orchard Mythos,
Tenement was their initial choice before later settling on
The Passageway. until Lemire announced an indefinite hiatus for
The Bone Orchard Mythos. ==Reception==