C2E2 2013: More Dark Horse Announcements – Witch Hunt, The Occultist, Itty Bitty Hellboy, Buzzkill, and Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight
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Dark Horse Comics closed out the 2013 C2E2 by announcing five more upcoming projects that should be of interest to genre fans, in particular Witch Hunt, The Occultist, and Itty Bitty Hellboy.
Witch Hunt comes to us from Victor Gischler and Juan Ferreyra while The Occultist heralds the return of Tim Seeley. Itty Bitty Hellboy is by Eisner winners Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, and Donny Cates and Mark Reznicek’s Buzzkill promises lots of boozin’ and bruisin’. Last but not least, the more perverted among you should enjoy the hell out of Alex de Campi’s Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight.
Read on for the details and artwork, and for more info on the 2013 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), which ran this weekend at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, visit C2E2.com.
From the Dark Horse Press Releases:
WITCH HUNT
From the minds of Victor Gischler (Punisher MAX, X-Men) and Juan Ferreyra (Colder, Rex Mundi) comes a new horror series: Witch Hunt.
“Readers who crave a mix of horror and action will want to pick up Witch Hunt. Juan is going to murder your face with his art,” quipped writer Victor Gischler. “I’m just so thrilled with his work, and Dark Horse is the perfect publisher for this project. So much support and enthusiasm. I can’t thank Dark Horse enough, and I can’t wait for this project to hit shelves!”
Cassian Steele is boss of the werewolf mafia in the Big Easy, and he’s got a problem. The old witch Verona, who knows his secret, has gone into hiding. Cassian wants her dead. So he sends out the word: an open contract. The first monster to dust Verona gets a big payday. Werewolf mobsters, vampire maids, voodoo wizards, zombie ninjas, and even a rogue priest show up to try to collect the bounty. What they don’t realize is that Barnabus Black, a demon desperately trying to regain his halo, is her protection.
“Victor came up with a very interesting story for me to draw. I was able to portray a varied array of weird stuff, which makes the book a really fun ride visually. So if you like werewolves, angels, demons, witches, zombies, ninjas, vampires, etc., you might find something to your liking,” added artist Juan Ferreyra.
Witch Hunt #1 is on sale September 18 in comic shops everywhere!
THE OCCULTIST
Dark Horse Comics is pleased to announce that Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash) is returning with his rare mix of humor and horror in the supernatural superhero series The Occultist. With acclaimed artist Mike Norton (Battlepug, The Answer!) on interior art and cover art by Steve Morris (Serenity, Angel & Faith), The Occultist will return this fall in the follow-up to its hugely successful 2011 miniseries.
When the Sword, a mysterious book of powerful spells, binds itself to him, the fact that Rob’s life has been falling apart doesn’t seem like such a big deal. To survive, Rob must learn to control the book’s unpredictable magic, while his life slips even further out of control… An evil witch doctor wants the Sword to reject Rob, now known as The Occultist, by deciding that he is a bad host in the ongoing war against the realm of the dead. The solution lies in a Catholic schoolgirl who dabbles in death for a quick high.
Look for The Occultist on sale October 2 in comic shops everywhere!
ITTY BITTY HELLBOY
Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani have created quite a stir with their work on some of the most fun and ageless comics of all time. They won an Eisner for Tiny Titans, their treatment of DC Comics’ Teen Titans, and their recent Kickstarter campaign for their Aw Yeah Comics series surpassed its goal in record time. Now, this dynamic duo takes on Dark Horse’s best-known character, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, in an all-new comics series, Itty Bitty Hellboy.
A ghost named Rasputin has been spotted. And Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. are going to find out what’s he up to. Who is Hellboy, anyway? Why does he have such a big hand, and what is it used for? Who’s weirder, he or his friends? What is the B.P.R.D.? And what does chicken soup have to do with all of it? All this and more will be answered in the debut issue, where BIG things happen to Itty Bitty Hellboy!
“Itty Bitty HELLBOY! WOW! Such awesomeness! I haven’t screamed so much AW YEAH shout-outs in all my life! It is truly an honor to be the next creative team to add to the HELLBOY saga. I have been a fan of Mike Mignola since Hellboy’s early days at Dark Horse LEGENDS. It’s true. Can’t wait! Itty Bitty has never been so HUGE! AW YEAH HELLBOY!” said Art Baltazar, famous cartoonist.
“We get to work on HELLBOY? HELL YEAH!” exclaimed Franco Aureliani. “One of the most iconic characters in all of comics, and we get to bring our own style and story to it. Truly a dream come true. We’re big fans! Itty Bitty Hellboy is going to be a lot of fun… and we get to actually say HELL(BOY)!”
“Given the recent developments in Hellboy’s life—falling in love, discovering that he’s the rightful king of England, having his heart torn out and dropped into hell—this is clearly the next logical step in his evolution,” said Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.
Itty Bitty Hellboy #1 arrives on shelves at your local comic shop on August 28!
BUZZKILL
From the minds of Donny Cates (Hunter Quaid) and Mark Reznicek (percussive force of the Toadies) comes a brand-new superhero series that packs an eighty-proof punch. Dark Horse Comics is thrilled to announce Buzzkill.
Ruben is not your average alcoholic; he’s an unstoppable superhero who derives his powers from imbibing massive amounts of alcohol. After all the disasters it’s caused in his personal life, he’s ready to get clean… and the city’s supervillains couldn’t be happier!
“What I like so much about the book is that while it has these wild superhero trappings, at its core it’s a very sweet and very personal story about the relationship between power and addiction and the very real consequences of both,” states Donny Cates. “It’s something that really interests me, and I think that sometimes we approach issues like these in comics as punch lines. What we’ve really tried to do here is take something really devastating and horrible and examine it through a very familiar terrain. Also, there is a character named Panteradactyl. So there’s that.”
In this wildly gorgeous new four-part miniseries from artist Geoff Shaw (Batman 80-Page Giant) and colorist Lauren Affe, Buzzkill is drunk with power.
“Working on Buzzkill is kinda like hanging out in a bar, drinking beers and doing shots with your buddy, and discussing the weirdest, wildest, most effed-up stuff you can think of to put in a comic. In fact, that’s exactly what it’s like,” says Mark Reznicek. “Donny Cates is the evil genius of comics so it’s a total blast to work with him. If you ever wanted to see what a drunken, superpowered barroom brawl looks like or wondered what would happen to bears in the airless vacuum of space or wanted to see a baboon in a business suit… Buzzkill is the book for you!”
Buzzkill #1 is on sale September 18 in comic shops everywhere!
GRINDHOUSE: DOORS OPEN AT MIDNIGHT
From the floor of C2E2, Dark Horse announces a book that was almost too much for the editorial team. Eisner nominee Alex de Campi (Smoke, Ashes) headlines a B-movie comic masterpiece in Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight. With covers by superstar artists Francesco Francavilla, Dan Panosian, and Coop, this series is excessive, gratuitous, and tasteless—just like you love it.
Literature: overrated. Morality: expendable. Tonight is right for some over-the-top sex and violence. Bringing the flavor of midnight exploitation flicks to comics, Grindhouse delivers four, two-issue gore operas, starting with the Chris Peterson-drawn “Bee Vixens from Mars,” pitting a one-eyed Southern Latina deputy against lusty alien chicks bent on laying eggs in the entire male population.
Future arcs include “Prison Ship Anteres,” featuring art from Simon Fraser (2000 AD); “Bride of Blood,” with art by Federica Manfredi (True Blood, Hack/Slash); and “Flesh Feast of the Devil Doll,” with art by Gary Erskine (The Mask).
“Grindhouse is the comic your mother warned you about. Seriously. You know when grownups told you comics were filthy, immoral trash? They were talking about this comic specifically,” states Alex de Campi. “Books like Grindhouse were the reason the Comics Code was invented. And if you’re in a very conservative or evangelical part of the US, you should be careful where you read it. Each story is two issues of solid gore, gratuitous nudity, and over-the-top badassery. It’s filthy. It’s violent. It’s really, really fun.”
“Bee Vixens” colorist Nolan Woodard added, “You do know I colored 28 Days Later, and this is still way more blood, right?”
Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight #1 is on sale October 2 in comic shops everywhere (where it’s not outlawed)!
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