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.