The Matron Volume 1

On February 12, 1975, the Averno County sheriff department put an end to the reign of terror of Rozina Krenek, aka the Matron, a cannibalistic serial killer who had plagued the Texas Hill Country for decades wearing a wooden mask and cloak while wielding a bearded ax. Forty-six years later, the Matron’s granddaughter Zina is a middle-aged waitress struggling to make a living in the increasingly gentrified center of Ascuas, a small town near San Antonio. More than anything, she wants to see her granddaughter Roz graduate from college and have a more comfortable life than the rest of the Krenek clan.
Roz appreciates the opportunity, but also wants to untangle herself from her cursed family and their hillbilly ways. Against their wishes, she is living at the dorms and has started a romantic relationship with Samantha Maldonado, whose grandfather was the very sheriff who killed the Matron.
The town welcomes the media attention brought by the anniversary of the Matron’s demise, even as meteorologists warn of a possible blizzard. In the midst of this tension, the owners of the diner where Zina works put her on notice: they are selling to outside investors, and she no longer has a job. Zina at first pleads with her bosses, then gets angry. Nothing works.
Outside, freezing wind begins to sweep the streets of Ascuas, and after nearly fifty years of fighting the urges inside her, Zina Krenek snaps. For, you see, Zina was meant to take up the mask, cloak, and ax. And now that the world is turning against her and her kin, it’s time for the Matron to rise once more to slice away power, privilege, and a pound of flesh.

The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro

Initially produced as a Kickstarter campaign, The Death Poem of Sensei Otoro is based on Jonathan Maberry’s prose story. Jonathan is writing the script, Boris Kay is the illustrator (look at his work on this page – magnificent! – the banner is beautifully coloured by Mariam Yasser), and lettering will be Stephen Kok. Christopher Sequeira is the editor and we will be formally announcing the colourist soon.

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.

Frankenstein Monstrance

Jason Franks, comments on his (and artist, Tam Nation’s) upcoming comic series, Frankenstein Monstrance: “I’ve loved Mary Shelley’s creation … since I was in primary school, and, while I know there has not been a shortage of adaptations and re-imaginings over the years, I really felt like I could do something interesting and different with the source material by bringing it into the current world. What do Victor and his monsters look like in an age where we have all the information in the world at our fingertips–and our use of that information is tracked, recorded and commodified? Where soldiers can fight wars with drones operated like videogames. Where scientists have cracked the human genome? Where organ transplants are common enough that there is a black market for them plied by international crime syndicates? Where the richest people alive are technologists? How is that world reflected in Mary Shelley’s vision?”

They Call Me Midnight

IPI Comics is very pleased to announce contracts have been signed for a forthcoming comic-book series and graphic novel, They Call Me Midnight, written by Nancy Holder and Alan Philipson, with art by Ben Sullivan. Cover art by John K. Snyder III.

This is the story of a vampire-who-is-not-a-vampire, plagued with all the memories—and bloodlust—of his progenitor, Count Dracula, yet he has never tasted blood. For many decades he has found cover and employment as a hit man for the Mafia, first in Sicily and then across the U.S. Rejecting his vile heritage, but accepting the burden of its guilt, he has become a monster all his own.