(W) Shaun Manning (A/CA) Anna Wieszczyk In Shops: Sep 14, 2022 SRP: $24.99
CEX Publishing is proud to present a deluxe, hardcover edition of the indie hit comic!
What would you do if you discovered that hell does not exist? Could you take on the role of the devil himself, meting out punishment for the wicked in your grotesque city of the damned?
The team of Shaun Manning (Macbeth: The Red King, Star Wars Adventures) and Anna Wieszczyk (Image’s Home, Godkiller) explore the temptation to take divine power into human hands as a popular high school teacher and his star pupil wield damnation and forgiveness as weapons.
(W) Shaun Manning (A/CA) Anna Wieszczyk In Shops: Sep 14, 2022 SRP: $24.99
CEX Publishing is proud to present a deluxe, hardcover edition of the indie hit comic!
What would you do if you discovered that hell does not exist? Could you take on the role of the devil himself, meting out punishment for the wicked in your grotesque city of the damned?
The team of Shaun Manning (Macbeth: The Red King, Star Wars Adventures) and Anna Wieszczyk (Image’s Home, Godkiller) explore the temptation to take divine power into human hands as a popular high school teacher and his star pupil wield damnation and forgiveness as weapons.
Written by Shaun Manning Art & Cover by Anna Wieszczyk
CEX Publishing is proud to present a deluxe, hardcover edition of the indie hit comic!
What would you do if you discovered that hell does not exist? Could you take on the role of the devil himself, meting out punishment for the wicked in your grotesque city of the damned?
The team of Shaun Manning (Macbeth: The Red King, Star Wars Adventures) and Anna Wieszczyk (Image’s Home, Godkiller) explore the temptation to take divine power into human hands as a popular high school teacher and his star pupil wield damnation and forgiveness as weapons.
I had no idea what Home #1 was about when I opened the review pdf just after midnight on Wednesday. Absolutely none – and while that experience was incredible, it’s going to be hard to talk about the comic without talking about the content of the book, so if you want the same experience then stop reading this review now, because frankly this comic is one that you should read.
Still with me?
Fair enough.
So what’s the comic about? Home #1is the story of a mother and son who have given up everything to come to the United States, by seeking asylum at the border between the USA and Mexico. Given that this comic is set at some point in the last four years, and given the news that has emerged about the Trump Administration’s policy of separating parents and children, you can probably imagine what happens next. But even knowing that, doesn’t make it any easier to read.
Written by Julio Anta with art by Anna Wieszczyk, colours by Bryan Valenza and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, the comic takes an unfiltered look at what life had been like for asylum seekers during the last four years (am I being too optimistic in thinking that things have changed? I hope not, but I also know that this isn’t an area that I’m an expert in). Anta’s dialogue will tear at your heart, the hope his characters have turning to uncertainty and fear is heartbreaking, and it hits so much harder because of the art work. There’s a distinct shift from warm colours toward cold and clinical greys and blues as Mercedes and Juan Gomez are faced with the reality of their situation.
Home #1 is not easy to read, but I think it’s a story that needs to be read; just because it’s a fictional story, doesn’t make the emotions within the comic any less vivid. The creative team really knows how to punch you in the gut. There’s a slight drop in the art toward the end of the book as things feel a little looser than before, but after reading the book a few times, I’m inclined to think that the looseness is a choice based on the events on the pages themselves.
But there’s still optimism in the story – well, apparently there will quite a lot based on Anta’s afterward, but I don’t know what to think of that at the moment, but there’s definitely signs of a brighter future… maybe. I don’t know. Obviously I believe the writer of the comic, but I’m not seeing anything like that right now.
All I really know about this book is that you need to read this comic.
Story: Julio Anta Artist: Anna Wieszcyk Colourist: Bryan Valenza Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou Story: 9.0 Art: 8.5 Overall: 8.8 Recommendation: Buy
Image provided a FREE copy for review, but I also purchased the comic
The upcoming series Home by writer Julio Anta and artist Anna Wieszczyk will boast a special, collectible series of variant covers featuring artwork by the lauded Jacoby Salcedo.
Salcedo is a longtime collaborator with Anta. They’ve previously worked together on “The Price of Freedom,” “Between Two Worlds,” and “Balseros,” mini-comics which were published in anthologies like COVID Chronicles and magazines like Panel X Panel. The pair have a forthcoming graphic novel together, Frontera, slated for 2023 with HarperAlley.
There will be a Salcedo variant available for each issue of the five-issue miniseries in stores this April.
The new series Home explores the real-world implications of a migrant with extraordinary powers, and will launch from Image Comics in April.
Home follows a young boy who is torn away from his mother while seeking asylum at the U.S. border, just as something begins to change in him. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the onset of superhuman abilities that will change his life forever.
Home #1 Cover A by Sterle (Diamond Code FEB210032), Home #1 Cover B by Salcedo (Diamond Code DEC209048) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, April 14.
Debut creators Julio Anta and Anna Wieszczyk weave a deeply grounded and heartfelt story in the forthcoming comic book Home. This five-issue miniseries will explore the real-world implications of a migrant with extraordinary powers, and will launch from Image Comics in April.
Home follows a young boy who is torn away from his mother while seeking asylum at the U.S. border, just as something begins to change in him. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the onset of superhuman abilities that will change his life forever.
Home #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, April 14.
Fallen gods, sex magic, and quantum physics technowizards collide in Pizzolo and Wieszczyk’s beloved modern classic about a boy wandering the wasteland in search of a new heart for his dying sister.
Writer Matt Pizzolo has managed to create this brilliant, strange, and perverse story that gives us a world that’s extremely grim. Godkiller brings aspects of both fantasy, horror, and sci-fi to the story, excellently mixing all of the genres into one working world. While the plot seems almost classical in nature, the chosen setting and complex story aspects make it stand apart I’m curious to see how the story continues in Godkiller: Tomorrow’s Ashes.
The art in this book by Ben Templesmith and Anna Wieszczyk is a mixture of action, sexual perversion, and violence. The combination creates an atmosphere that keeps things dark at all times. Yet, despite the darkness, it manages to show the sorrow, and desperation of the main character, Tommy has as he searches for a replacement heart for his dying sister.
Story: Matt Pizzolo Art: Ben Templesmith, Anna Wieszczyk Story: 9.5 Art:9.5 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy
Black Mask Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Black Mask Studios is one of the hottest publishers out there, constantly releasing comics that are some of the most buzzed about and consistent sell-outs. Launched in 2014 by Matt Pizzolo, Brett Gurewitz, and Steve Niles, the publisher has revealed its third slate of comics, a dozen projects “principally from new creators bringing bold and unorthodox points of view to their comics.”
With an already proven success record as a publisher, plus a line-up of new creators, this could be one of the hottest launchpad for new comic talent in quite some time.
So who is in the Class of 2016? Take a look…
June 2016
JADE STREET PROTECTION SERVICES
writer Katy Rex
artist Fabian Lelay
colorist Mara Jayne Carpenter
covers Annie Wu (Black Canary)
From an all-new creative team, Jade Street Protection Services is Black Mask’s first all-ages book, decribed as The Breakfast Club of Hogwarts.
Jade Street Protection Services follows a group of (bad) students at Matsdotter Academy, an elite private school for magical girls. When they all meet for the first time in a totally unfair detention, these punk rock witch delinquents cut class and discover the fates Matsdotter has in store for them are even more sinister than they suspected.
JSPS channels Black Mask’s edgy, subversive sensibility into a whipsmart all-ages adventure for delinquents young and old.
July 2016
KIM & KIM
writer Magdalene Visaggio
artist Eva Cabrera
colorist Claudia Aguirre
covers Tess Fowler (Rat Queens), Devaki Neogi (Curb Stomp)
Another one from an all-new creative team, Kim & Kim is a Tank Girl-esque buddy adventure about a trans woman and her best girlfriend.
Kim & Kim is a day-glo action adventure that’s bursting with energy and enthusiasm and puts queer women and trans women front and center. Badass besties Kim and Kim are out to make a name for themselves in the wild world of interdimensional cowboy law enforcement – and they very quickly end up in way over their heads.
Blending the punk exuberance of Tank Girl with the buddy adventure wackiness of Superbad (if Michael Cera was a trans woman and Jonah Hill a queer girl partner in crime), Kim & Kim focuses on the power and meaning of female friendships as engines of validation. A bright, happy, punk rock sci fi adventure that is queer as shit.
2016
BLACK
writer Kwanza Osajyefo (former editor at Zuda)
co-creator/designer Tim Smith 3
artist Jamal Igle (Supergirl, Molly Danger)
covers Khary Randolph (Robin Wars)
In a world that already hates and fears them – what if only Black people had superpowers?
After miraculously surviving being gunned down by police, a young man learns that he is part of the biggest lie in history. Now he must decide whether it’s safer to keep it a secret or if the truth will set him free.
X-Men meets The Wire, BLACK’s Kickstarter blazed through Black History Month 2016 earning $91,973, more than three time its funding goal.
2016
RUN FOR THE SHADOWS
writers J.M. DeMatteis (Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt, Justice League) & Matt Pizzolo(Young Terrorists, Godkiller)
artist Josh Hood (We Can Never Go Home)
cover Amancay Nahuelpan
Julie was a good girl from an elite family with her whole life ahead of her, until she got mixed up with bad boy Winston. After a decade of hard drugs and harder living, Julie is finally pulling her life back together. In rehab, she undergoes intensive therapy that unearths a deeply repressed trauma: her memory from being 16 and giving up her and Winston’s baby for adoption. She realizes it’s a lie. An implanted memory. There was something else that took the baby. Something evil. Julie tracks down Winston and forces him to tell her what truly happened, a horrifying revelation that will lead them both on a journey into darkness.
A lyrical and fantastical tale of rebellion, redemption, and hellfire, but, most of all, a story of family.
From legendary writer J.M. DeMatteis, co-written by Matt Pizzolo fresh off his smash hit Young Terrorists and illustrated by Josh Hood still on fire from We Can Never Go Home.
2016
THE SKEPTICS
writer Tini Howard
artist Devaki Neogi (Curb Stomp)
A stylish, period, political adventure about a pair of hip, clever teens who fool the world of the 1960s into believing they have superpowers. Like X-Men: First Class meets Project Alpha.
It is the 1960s. The Russians have the A bomb, the H bomb, and now the most terrifying weapon of all: a pair of psychically superpowered young people. Terrified and desperate, the US top brass scours from coast to coast in search of psychic Americans. Enter Dr. Isobel Santaclara, an eccentric illusionist and grifter who has recruited two teenagers and trained them to trick the US government, the Russians, and the whole world into believing they are dangerous psychics. Skeptical is a pre-punk period piece, a sort of honest, unfuzzy, non-nostalgic look at the Cold War 1960s in DC.
Featuring female doctors, black female college students, and other genius “undesirables.” Like a cross between Kill Your Boyfriend and Hard Day’s Night, but about politics and ethics and how punk rock it is to be the smartest person in the room.
Street date: April 27, 2016
4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK
writer Matthew Rosenberg (We Can Never Go Home)
artist Tyler Boss (VICE)
What is it?
A FUN(ISH) CRIME CAPER ABOUT CHILDREN!
11 year old Paige and her weirdo friends have a problem: a gang of ex-cons need her dad’s help on a heist… the problem is those ex-cons are morons. If Paige wants to keep her dad out of trouble, she’s going to have to pull off the heist herself.
4KWIAB is a very dark & moderately humorous story about friendship, growing up, d & d, puking, skinheads, grand larceny, & family.
2016
THE FOREVERS
writer Curt Pires (The Fiction, Mayday)
artist Eric Pfeiffer (Arcadia)
Live fast. Live forever.
Five friends struggling on the brink of stardom sacrifice everything in a black magic pact that brings them all the wealth and glamour they ever wanted. But now, years later, the glow is fading. When one of them is killed in an accident, they each feel a pulse of magic rise in them. They realize the glow is spread evenly among the group, and if one dies that power is passed along to the rest. Suddenly, they are being hunted. One of them has decided to kill the rest and harness the remaining power.
As they search for the killer, each of The Forevers will be confronted by the macabre reality of the lengths people will go to be adored, to make sure the spotlight never fades.
2016
NO ANGEL
writers Eric Palicki (Guardians Of Infinity) & Adrianne Palicki (actress, Mockingbird in Agents Of SHIELD)
artist Ari Syahrazad
Religious texts from The Bible to the Sumerian tablets speak of strange creatures descending from the heavens and mating with humans, their children the superhuman heroes of myth. None of this ever meant anything to Iraq War veteran Hannah Gregory, until she found herself in the crosshairs of a dangerous cult convinced that she’s a descendant of these dangerous bloodlines… bloodlines they’re determined to eradicate.
No Angel is a cosmological and conspiratorial modern western in the style of Preacher meets Justified by way of Jodorowsky.
2016
THE DREGS
writers Zac Thompson (VICE) & Lonnie Nadler (VICE)
artist Eric Zawadzki (Last Born)
In this bloodsoaked satire of gentrification, an exclusive new restaurant called Pijin becomes the hottest spot in town by serving high-end dishes of human flesh. Where is the meat coming from? No one knows for sure, but a drug addled homeless man named Arnold Timm notices his friends disappearing and is determined to find out if they’re being fed to the rich.
A modern spin on Sweeney Todd in our world of excess where a touch of celebrity can make even cannibalism seem downright sexy.
2016
TOMORROW’S ASHES
writer Matt Pizzolo(Young Terrorists, Godkiller)
artist Anna Wieszczyk(Godkiller)
The creators of Godkiller (one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2015) return for an all new saga.
In a twisted future where America has been divided into warring city states, escaped slavegirl Halfpipe and grifter Soledad roam the savage land on the fringes between civilizations. When they come upon a strange relic, they will uncover a secret history of America’s destruction.
This grimy apocalyptic fantasy manages to be simultaneously fun and horrifying, both brutal and intellectual, a unique descent into the American nightmare.
2016
SPACE RIDERS, vol 2: GALAXY OF BRUTALITY
writer Fabian Rangel Jr(Space Riders)
artist Alexis Ziritt (Space Riders)
The Skullship Santa Muerte rides again as the creators of Space Riders (one of The Village Voice’s Outstanding Comics of 2015) return.
An ancient evil is gathering power throughout the cosmos, and it falls upon the legendary SPACE RIDERS to kick its a**! Having disbanded, the crew of CAPITAN PELIGRO, MONO, and YARA must reunite for what may be their final ride!
The cult comic that electrified comic readers in the brain RETURNS to blast your fragile human psyche into oblivion!!
2016
WE CAN NEVER GO HOME, vol. 2
writers Matthew Rosenberg (We Can Never Go Home, QUAKE) & Patrick Kindlon (We Can Never Go Home, QUAKE)
artist Josh Hood (We Can Never Go Home)
The dream team behind 2015 breakout hit We Can Never Go Home (winner of Diamond Comics Gem Award for Best Indie Graphic Novel of 2015) are back.
17 year old misfit Morgan was lost. Unsure if she imagined the teenagers with strange abilities who were involved in the death of her boyfriend or not, Morgan was worried she was losing her mind. She fell in with a rough crowd, developed some bad habits, and did whatever she could to try and forget the things she thought she saw. But when she runs into a very lonely and disturbed girl named Dania, everything changes. Like those teenagers from her past, Dania can do things other people can’t. Dania will be Morgan’s ticket out of their small town and into a bigger world… whether she wants to be or not.
Check out some of the announced sell-outs and new printings announced this week.
Black Mask Studios
Matt Pizzolo and Anna Wieszczyk’s brutal hit series Godkiller continues its reign of terror by selling through the 2nd printing of Godkiller#2 and generating demand for a 3rd printing!
The 3rd printing cover is a celebration of cosplay and fandom, featuring a fan-made photo of Samantha Lubrano cosplaying GODKILLER’s Halfpipe (photographed by Justin Brooks).
Marvel
Marvel has announced that Ant-Man #1 by Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas has sold out, and will return with a second printing on February 4. It will feature a cover by Mark Brooks.
Publishing and production company Black Mask Studios has announced its first major in-house production: three animated features based on the comic book Godkiller by Black Mask co-founder Matt Pizzolo, Anna Muckcracker Wieszczyk, and Ben Templesmith.
Black Mask acquired the film/TV/transmedia rights earlier this year from Pizzolo’s film company Halo-8, who produced an animated series of the property in 2010.
Black Mask will re-release the animated series Godkiller: Walk Among Us in 2015 as a fully re-mastered feature with new voice talent. This will be followed by two brand-new animated features Godkiller: Tomorrow’s Ashes in 2016 and Godkiller: The Trouble You Took From Her Eyes in 2017.
The features will utilize different animation styles for the various dimensions the characters travel through. They will be produced by Black Mask Studios, co-founded last year by Pizzolo, Brett Gurewitz, and Steve Niles.
Godkiller, about a teenage orphan and an escaped slavegirl journeying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, debuted as a self-published underground comic and was launched in stores as a new ongoing comic book series from Black Mask on October 29. It was recently announced that Godkiller’s debut issue on Black Mask sold through its print run and would be the label’s first comic to receive a second printing based on outsized demand.
Black Mask is co-producing the Syfy series Fiver Ghosts with UCP and BenderSpink, based on the comic by Frank Barbiere and Chris Mooneyham. Evan Daugherty is writing the pilot. Black Mask is also developing a transmedia adaptation of the same comic in-house.
