Tag Archives: adam cahoon

Vault makes Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 FREE for retailers

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Vault has announced they are expanding their industry-changing Free-to-Retailers program,  and will make Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 completely free to retailers. 

In 2023, Vault founded the innovative Free-to-Retailers program, offering retailers first issues at no cost.  The first two titles launched under this program were Christopher Yost and Val Rodrigues’ Unnatural Order #1, and Zack Kaplan and Fabiana Mascolo’s Beyond Real #1. Collectively, these two issues received over a quarter million copies ordered.

Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 is a true jumping on point for new readers, requiring no previous knowledge of the series in order to read, making it a perfect issue for Vault’s free-to-retailers program, enabling retailers to hook in new readers to one of the most beloved and best-selling independent comic series of the past decade.   

The standard cover of Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 will be offered to retailers in free bundles of 25 copies. The issue will retain its $4.99 SRP, and retailers will be free to sell, discount, or freely distribute copies to their customers as they see fit.  In addition to the standard cover, Vault will offer net-priced, open order premium variants from a murderers row of hit artists like Corin Howell, Adam Cahoon, Ed Luce, and Patrick Gañas. Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 will also feature a stunning Berserk manga homage variant by Angela Wu, which is sure to be a hit among manga readers.   

Barbaric: Born in Blood #1 will hit store shelves on April 10th, 2024. The Full synopsis can be read below: 

A new era of Barbaric begins!

Worried Axe is going to find out you fell behind on a few issues? Scared to admit that despite all your friends raving about Barbaric for years, you still haven’t joined in on the fun? Rejoice! For Barbaric: Born in Blood begins the next season of Owen, Axe, and Soren’s tale. Yes, that’s right! We did it…the thing everyone says they’re doing, even when they’re lying through their teeth: a genuinely good jumping on point. How, you ask? Well, it all starts with a compelling new bad guy. 

Meet Orrick, the tortured barbarian now turned master torturer, who will take us deep into Owen’s past, revealing secrets that should have stayed buried…like Axe in a chest cavity slurping up that sweet, delicious blood. Will the cursed-to-do-good barbarian finally do some actual good? Probably not! But some much worse guys will almost certainly lose their heads. Yummy!

Vault announces Barbaric: Born in Blood

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Vault has announced that a new era of Barbaric is about to begin in a brand new series, Barbaric: Born In Blood, written by Michael Moreci, drawn by Nathan Gooden, colored by Fabi Marques, lettered by Jim Campbell, and designed by Tim Daniel. 

Worried Axe is going to find out you fell behind on a few issues? Scared to admit that despite all your friends raving about Barbaric for years, you still haven’t joined in on the fun? Rejoice! For Barbaric: Born in Blood begins the next season of Owen, Axe, and Soren’s tale. Yes, that’s right! We did it…the thing everyone says they’re doing, even when they’re lying through their teeth: a genuinely good jumping on point. How, you ask? Well, it all starts with a compelling new bad guy.

Meet Orrick, the tortured barbarian now turned master torturer, who will take us deep into Owen’s past, revealing secrets that should have stayed buried…like Axe in a chest cavity slurping up that sweet, delicious blood. Will the cursed-to-do-good barbarian finally do some actual good? Probably not! But some much worse guys will almost certainly lose their heads. Yummy!

Barbaric: Born in Blood will feature a line of stellar variants from superstar artists Corin Howell, Adam Cahoon, Ed Luce, Angela Wu, and Patrick Gañas. Issue #1 will hit store shelves on February 14th, 2024.    

The Nasty #1 delivers an interesting spin on the horror genre

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The Nasty #1

Calling all scary movie fans! Scotland, 1994. Eighteen-year-old Thumper Connell still has an imaginary friend: the masked killer from his favorite slasher film. Thumper is obsessed with horror and always has been. He fills his time with scary VHS rentals and hanging out with his fellow fans, The Murder Club. Things begin to get weird when the club gets ahold of a notorious film that no one has seen and causes bad things to happen. The Nasty #1 is a fun start that feels like a nice spin on the horror genre.

Written by John Lees, The Nasty #1 spends most of its time introducing us to Thumper and his friends. It’s not about the kill count or creative ways to kill people. The Nasty #1 is very much a boy and his imaginary friend. Thumper seems like a nice person, but he’s a bit of a loser, not super popular, gets picked on, and his safety is his small group of friends. We also get a lot of focus and hints at his life at home, one that comes off as unhappy with a father that’s who knows where and a mother who is overworked and underappreciated. An imaginary friend like this spinning out of an unhappy home life is an essay unto itself.

And things are generally interesting building towards the end when things begin to get rolling. It’s a debut and start that’s not what I expected at all and the rather slow, and somewhat uneventful, nature of it all is a surprise from the blood and guts I was expecting.

The art by George Kambadais and Adam Cahoon is good. There’s an interesting style that I don’t normally associate with horror comics and the duo have a lot of fun with Thumper’s imaginary friend. There’s moments that got me to laugh as they play off of horror tropes. Some of the pages themselves are silent, lacking dialogue, which puts all of the focus on the art to drive the entertainment.

The Nasty #1 is a solid debut with an interesting take on the horror genre. It should be interesting to see where it all goes and overall, the debut issue shows off a lot of potential replacing what we’d expect is a horror story with something that resembles more of The Goonies.

Story: John Lees Art: George Kambadais, Adam Cahoon Letterer: Jim Campbell
Story: 8.15 Art: 8.25 Overall: 8.2 Recommendation: Buy

Vault Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – comiXology/Kindle

The Nasty #1 sells out before its release

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The buzz has been building for months around the debut of John Lees, Adam Cahoon, George Kambadais and Jim Campbell‘s new slasher-inspired horror series The Nasty. Vault Comics has announced the title has completely sold out at the distributor level before its release on April 5, with a second printing on the way! 

The new second printing cover is a an all-new primarily black and white take on the series’ main cover by Adam Cahoon, and is pictured above. Final orders are due for this special second printing alongside orders for issue 2 on Monday April 10 with codes and additional information forthcoming.

Scotland, 1994.

Eighteen-year-old Thumper Connell still has an imaginary friend: the masked killer from his favourite slasher film. Thumper is obsessed with horror and always has been. He fills his time with scary VHS rentals and hanging out with his fellow fans, The Murder Club. But everything changes when his local video shop acquires one of the notorious films known as “video nasties” – films so scary, they’re the target of the British Moral Decency League’s crusade to ban and burn. But it’s only a movie, right? It’s all just imaginary, isn’t it?

A story about the perception of evil, the power of genre, the love of fandom, the need to create art, oh, and crap-your-pants TERROR!”

The Nasty #1

Adam Cahoon joins The Nasty as the new series artist

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Vault Comics has announced that Adam Cahoon will be the new series artist for The Nasty beginning with the third issue. Cahoon has already contributed art to the first two issues of The Nasty, written by John Lees with letters by Jim Campbell. 

Equal parts Friday The 13th, Giant Days, Empire Records, and The Ring, The Nasty is a story about the perception of evil, the power of genre, the love of fandom, the need to create art, oh, and crap-your-pants TERROR! 

The Nasty follows eighteen-year-old Thumper Connell still has an imaginary friend: the masked killer from his favourite slasher film. Thumper is obsessed with horror and always has been. He fills his time with scary VHS rentals and hanging out with his fellow fans, The Murder Club. But everything changes when his local video shop acquires one of the notorious films known as “video nasties” – films so scary, they’re the target of the British Moral Decency League’s crusade to ban and burn. But it’s only a movie, right? It’s all just imaginary, isn’t it?

The Nasty #1 hits store shelves in March 2023, and will feature a full suite of gorgeously terrifying variant covers from some of the hottest artists in comics, including Killadelphia’s Jason Shawn Alexander, Giant Days’ Max Sarin, Nightfall: Double Feature’s Maan House, Door to Door Night by Night’s Sally Cantirino, Barbaric’s Robert Wilson IV, & more.

The Nasty #1

Preview: Halloween Man: Beyond October

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Halloween Man: Beyond October

Written by Drew Edwards, Jesse Farrell, Russell Hillman, Matt Morrison
Art by Adam Cahoon, Matthew Callahan, Keith Chan, April Guadiana, Waen Manikan, Joey Muerto, David Olivarez, Dan Price, Noodles Queen, Evan Quiring, Kevin Richardson, Nicola Scott, John Sowder
Pencils by Sergio Calvet, Kaan Erdrogan, John Gholson, Paulo J Hernandez, Andrea Montano, Evan Quiring, John Sowder, Jason Wilson, Max Young
Inks by John Gholson
Colored by Dan Conner, John Gholson, April Guadiana, Kat Horton, Annette Kwok, Kitty Pierce
Cover by Nicola Scott
Lettered by April Guadiana, Matt Live
Edited by Russell Hillman
Purchase

Beyond October: The 20th Anniversary Issue
Celebrate 20 years of one of underground comics’ most enduring characters, Halloween Man! This special jam issue features a mixture of alternative and mainstream artists, topped off with a real stunner of a cover by DC/Image superstar, Nicola Scott!

Revelations abound as a frosty Halloween night is invaded by folkloric Yuletide monsters. Frau Perchta, the Christmas Witch, wants to sink her claws into Halloween, but first she must rob Halloween Man of his supernatural powers.

Also in this issue, a long lost webcomic has been dusted off and spruced up for this anniversary extravaganza. Follow everyone’s favorite necromancer Morlack as he explores the early days of Halloween Man. All of this plus a special pin-up gallery section filled with jaw-dropping art!

Join us for endings and beginnings in an issue that will delight old fans and inspire new ones.

Halloween Man: Beyond October