IPI is excited to announce the acquisition of The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro by prose and comic legend Jonathan Maberry, as well as the very talented artist Boris Kay who will be its illustrator. The 4-issue comic series is based on Maberry’s novella by the same name, and will, at first, be presented through two Kickstarter campaigns.
Otoro is one of the last of the great samurai, now working as a ronin as he enters middle age. He is hired by a local and very powerful daimyo to go to a small island and rescue the daimyo’s family—particularly his infant grandson and heir. An epidemic has swept through Japan, turning the infected into flesh-eating ghouls. Otoro has to fight his way through a legion of the living dead to rescue the child, even if the mission results in his own death. After all, a samurai prays for an honorable death.
JONATHAN MABERRY is a NYTimes bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 4-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, poet, and comic book writer. He writes suspense, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and action. His V-Wars comics became a Netflix show; and other works are in development for film and TV. His Joe Ledger thrillers are in development for TV by Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick films. His work on the Black Panther comic was used for a big chunk of the blockbuster Marvel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Jonathan’s comic book work includes Captain America, Wolverine, The Punisher, Marvel Zombies Return, the Marvel Universe vs. post-apocalyptic comics, Bad Blood (Dark Horse, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for best graphic novel), Godzilla vs Cthulhu, Karl Kolchak, and many others. The Sensei Ōtoro comic will draw heavily on Jonathan’s extensive 63 years of Japanese martial arts experience, his work as a bodyguard, his work as the Expert Witness for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office for murder cases involving martial arts, and fourteen years teaching Martial Arts History at Temple University. He regularly teaches How to Write Fight and Action Scenes. He is the author of over fifty novels, 200 short stories, 20 nonfiction books (mostly on martial arts and self-defense), and editor of 30 anthologies. He is the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. Find him at www.jonathanmaberry.com and everywhere on social media.
Kay started off in underground magazines in his native Serbia, doing short stories for which he won The Best Artwork Award at the Belgrade Comic Con. Since he moved to the US, he has done creator-owned graphic novels, most recently Grey Cells (written by Lawrence Goodman). In Australia, Kay has contributed to Frew’s Phantom comics.
IPI Comics will run two Kickstarter campaigns starting very early 2026 (2 issues per campaign), offering very special rewards not available through normal comic store distribution. On completion and fulfilment, IPI will release the 4 issues through comic stores globally, as well as through GlobalComix.
We will be posting more updates as we get closer to the Kickstarter Campaign – subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest information as they are posted.
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