Lady Mary Van Tassel’s origin and her connection to the Headless Horseman will be revealed in Sleepy Hollow: The Witches of the Western Wood. The comic is a prequel to Tim Burton’s 1999 Sleepy Hollow film about the famous Headless Horseman from Washington Irving’s classic story.

Entertainment Weekly got the first look at the comic from the IDW Dark imprint. Written by Delilah S. Dawson and illustrated by Jose Jaro, the book goes back to when Mary Van Tassel was a girl named Sarah Archer living under the thumb of her mother, a suspected witch.

“Sarah and her twin are raised in the wild Western Wood, taught the ways of witchcraft, and forced to endure abuse and neglect. But a chance encounter with the hellish Hessian at the moment of his beheading lights a fire in Sarah, giving her the power to overcome those who have wronged her and grow into a fearsome witch,” the synopsis reads.

Comic editor Riley Farmer told Entertainment Weekly that they “wanted to understand this fearsome witch and the Horseman a bit better.” He also said that Paramount, the film’s producer, was on board with their plans to take the storytelling into darker territory.

The prequel follows IDW Dark’s Return to Sleepy Hollow limited series that began in October 2025. The story is set 15 years after Burton’s movie when Ichabod is debunking occult claims around the world. He gets a letter asking him to go back to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a new string of strange murders.

Sleepy Hollow: The Witches of the Western Wood will be a five-issue series that debuts in comic shops on May 6.