Tag Archives: michael lee harris

The Horizon Experiment gets its first collection this April

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The critically acclaimed The Horizon Experiment comic book series, led by Eisner and Harvey Award-winning The Good Asian creator Pornsak Pichetshote, will be collected into a first volume this April. The series features five unique “pilot” one-shots by all-star creative teams from across entertainment, with stories featuring diverse protagonists inspired by pop culture icons (like James Bond, John Constantine, and Indiana Jones), while exploring popular genre fare from a different perspective.

Co-edited by Pichetshote and Eisner Award-winning editor Will Dennis, the series kicked off with The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian, written by Pichetshote and featuring illustrations by superstar artists Terry and Rachel Dodson, a scintillating thriller full of secrets and scandal, featuring a Chinese super spy inspired by James Bond. The Horizon Experiment series also features stunning connecting variant covers by Eisner Award-winning artist Tula Lotay.

Writer Sabir Pirzada, known for writing on beloved franchises like Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, teamed with Eisner Award-winning horror artist Michael Walsh for the one-shot, The Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned, introducing the world to Inayah Jibril, Professor of Ethnography and the Occult. A love letter to classic horror from Dracula to John Constantine, the terrifying tale follows a Muslim exorcist, in a new interpretation of horror tropes.

Tananarive Due and Kelsey Ramsay’s The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs one-shot follows a family of Black Lycanthropes of East African descent who find themselves caught in a burgeoning war in Miami when the truth starts to come out that werewolves aren’t just a myth. Co-author of the graphic novel The Keeper, and an acclaimed fiction writer known as the “Octavia Butler of horror,” Due has won an NAACP Image Award, World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, and much more; Moon Dogs marks her first solo full-length writing endeavor in comics. She’s joined by breakout artist Kelsey Ramsay in her first Image Comics series.

J. Holtham, an esteemed playwright, TV writer, and producer, joined the project with his first creator-owned comic The Horizon Experiment: Motherf*ckin’ Monsters, co-created by African-American cartoonist Michael Lee Harris, creator of Black Hitler and Choco Leche. The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters is like Evil Dead for blerds, a love letter to Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright set to a Wu-Tang soundtrack. Fans of Bitter Root and Chew will enjoy this meta horror comedy full of quips and gore, in which a nerdy Black kid from Brooklyn and his friends stumble upon demon-worshipping frat assholes trying to take over the world.

Powerhouse comic book writer Vita Ayala partnered up with on-the-verge star artist Skylar Patridge for The Horizon Experiment: Finders//Keepers, an action-adventure one-shot that twists the genre in a way that’s never been done before. The comic is a reverse Indiana Jones story that follows Puerto Rican archeology grad student Ines Guarua, who plans to steal an important cultural artifact from a famous museum in order to bring it back home to where it belongs.

The Horizon Experiment, Vol. 1 (Lunar code 0225IM443) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, April 16 (FOC date is Monday, March 10). It will be available at independent bookstores (ISBN: 9781534337008) on April 29, 2025, as well as on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Indigo, and Waterstones, and across many digital platforms.

The Horizon Experiment, Vol. 1

J. Holtham teams with Michael Lee Harris for The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters

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J. Holtham is teaming up with Michael Lee Harris to create The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters. This fourth installment in The Horizon Experiment series of one-shots will hit shelves this December; the series centers on original protagonists from marginalized backgrounds set in a popular genre, led by Eisner and Harvey Award-winning The Good Asian and Infidel creator Pornsak Pichetshote.

Marking Holtham’s first creator-owned comic and Harris’s first Image Comics project, The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters is like Evil Dead but for blerds, a love letter to Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright set to a Wu-Tang soundtrack. Fans of Bitter Root and Chew will enjoy this meta horror comedy full of quips and gore. Also featuring dynamic lettering by Micah Myers, Motherfu*kin’ Monsters is co-edited by Pichetshote and award-winning editor Will Dennis (SOMNA: A Bedtime Story, Gideon Falls).

In Motherfu*kin’ Monsters, a nerdy Black kid from Brooklyn and his friends stumble upon demon-worshipping frat assholes trying to take over the world. What ensues is colorful chaos as “sorta” hero JJ Henry and his fam fight for their motherfu*kin’ survival and to stop this Grimoire-based evil from being unleashed. In this story, instead of having the Black characters be sidekicks and have quick deaths, as has often been the case in horror, Holtham and Harris put them in the center.

The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters #1

The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, December 18:

  • Cover A by Michael Lee Harris – Lunar code 1024IM307
  • Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting) – Lunar code 1024IM308
  • Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting) – Lunar code 1024IM309
  • Cover D (blank sketch cover) – Lunar code 1024IM310

Pornsak Pichetshote leads an all-star creative team for Horizon Experiment

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Eisner and Harvey Award-winning The Good Asian and Infidel creator Pornsak Pichetshote is collaborating with an all-star creative team from across entertainment—including comics, literature, film and television—for The Horizon Experiment, a series of five one-shot comic books, all featuring original protagonists from marginalized backgrounds set in a popular genre and inspired by pop culture icons, where each character’s unique background allows the stories to go into new directions.

Co-edited by Pichetshote and acclaimed editor Will Dennis, the series kicks off with The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian, written by Pichetshote and featuring illustrations by superstar artists Terry and Rachel Dodson, a thriller featuring a Chinese super spy inspired by James Bond. A first look at a selection of pages from the one-shot showcase the first scintillating sneak peek at the scandal and secrets within the story. The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian #1 hits shelves on September 25 from Image Comics; the other four one-shots will be released one-by-one on a monthly basis. Starting with The Manchurian, the series will feature connecting variant covers by Eisner Award-winning artist Tula Lotay.

Along with The Manchurian, The Horizon Experiment series will also feature a one-shot by Pakistani-American writer Sabir Pirzada, known for writing on beloved franchises like Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, and who will be debuting his first Image Comics graphic novel Dandelion on June 19. Pirzada is teaming up with Eisner-winning horror artist Michael Walsh for the one-shot, The Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned, introducing the world to Inayah Jibril, Professor of Ethnography and the Occult. A love letter to classic horror from Dracula to John Constantine, the book follows a Muslim exorcist, in a new interpretation of horror tropes.

These two upcoming one-shots will be joined by Tananarive Due’s The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs, which follows a family of Black Lycanthropes of East African descent who find themselves caught in a burgeoning war when the truth starts to come out that werewolves aren’t just a myth. Co-author of the graphic novel The Keeper, and an acclaimed fiction writer who has won an NAACP Image Award, World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, and much more, Moon Dogs marks Due’s first solo full-length writing endeavor in comics. She’s joined by breakout artist Kelsey Ramsey on Moon Dogs in her first Image Comics series.

J. Holtham, an African-American playwright, TV writer, and producer on the Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale, will be joining the creative team by debuting his first creator-owned comic The Horizon Experiment: Motherf#cking Monsters, joined by African-American cartoonist Michael Lee Harris, creator, writer, and artist of Black Hitler and Choco Leche. Motherf#cking Monsters is Evil Dead for blerds. A nerdy Black kid from Brooklyn and his friends stumble upon demon-worshipping frat assholes trying to take over the world in this love letter to Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright, set to a Wu-Tang soundtrack.

The final one-shot, The Horizon Experiment: Finders / Keepers, marks beloved creator Vita Ayala’s return to creator-owned work. Known for their work on iconic franchises such as X-Men, Wonder Woman, Star Wars, and more, their Image Comics one-shot will be a reverse Indiana Jones adventure that follows archeology grad student Ines Guarua, who steals artifacts from museums to return them to their native cultures. Vita is teaming up with fan-favorite comic artist and creator Skylar Patridge for this original action-adventure.

The Horizon Experiment The Manchurian #1

The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, September 25:

  • Cover A by Terry and Rachel Dodson
  • Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting)
  • Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting)

Z2 and Teddy Swims Team for Swimmy and the Valley of the Last Song

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Z2 Comics has announced their newest collaboration, this time with singer-songwriter Teddy Swims. The book portrays an imaginative adventure through the lens of a teddy bear, a format that will appeal to all ages!

Teddy Swims: Swimmy and the Valley of the Last Song follows the adorable anthropomorphic Teddy Bear version of Teddy and the elephantine versions of his bandmates. Get ready to meet the Bear behind the band! In this all-ages graphic novel collaboration between Teddy Swims and Z2 Comics, Swimmy the Bear and his fun-loving friends get an opportunity to take their act from small-time to worldwide, but is a laidback bunch of critters ready for the pressure that comes with big agents, big deals, and big dreams? Swimmy the Bear and his fun-loving friends get an opportunity to take their act from small-time to worldwide, but is a laidback bunch of critters ready for the pressure that comes with big agents, big deals, and big dreams?

Teddy Swims: Swimmy and the Valley of the Last Song has been brought from the mind of the artist himself to the printed page by writer Grace Thomas, Illustrator Fred Stresing, and editors Camilla Zhang and Ryan Cady, with an exclusive limited deluxe version to include prints by artists Ian McGinty, Michael Lee Harris, and Sarah Stern. This inspiring and charming new story for music fans of all ages arrives in finer comic shops and bookstores everywhere this fall, with all editions, including the exclusive deluxe hardcover available to preorder directly from Z2 now!

Teddy Swims: Swimmy and the Valley of the Last Song

Review: Unpublished

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Unpublished

In a world where we’re interested in creators, the director’s cut of any work has become an inevitability. Petitions launched screaming for creators to release their own original intended product has become commonplace. One of the most recent campaigns included Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League. The movie which probably would have been much more fulfilling than what was released was probably the 6-hour version of Watchmen, as the new series shows just how dense this world is.

Another good example of a story enriched by cut scenes is Avengers: Endgame a movie that was an emotional rollercoaster but became even more endearing with the added scenes. Anyone who has ventured into the special features of a Blu-ray can tell you deleted scenes can be the best scenes in a film. The audience can see the many different directions one story can go or what certain scenes may have alluded to. Unpublished is a collection by the burgeoning creator Michael Lee Harris showcasing this rising star’s works in progress.

In “Tug,” a tugboat crew deals with the advancement of technology and how it affects their livelihood. In “Metro Litan,” Harris takes us to a dystopian future where books are a commodity and zombies grow like weeds. In the final story, “Beaver In Chief,” we find a young beaver looking to be chief of his tribe but doesn’t want all of the trials and tribulations. By the book’s end, there are definitely reasons why each story wasn’t picked, but not because of a lack of talent.

Overall, a trio of stories which proves that Harris is a talent that should be on everyone’s radars. The stories by Harris are well developed and well characterized. The art by Harris is beautiful. Altogether, a set of stories both magnetic and full of heart, which makes Harris a creator to watch out for.

Story: Michael Lee Harris Art: Michael Lee Harris
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy

Review: Verdict #1

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Verdict #1

As long as I can remember, gangster movies have more than captured the public imagination. Organized crime has always been part of the fabric that makes America. It has made its way into every city in every state. So, it was only natural, that films would want to give audiences a look behind what makes them who they are. The ones everyone usually talks about, like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, were children of immigrants and became criminals out of necessity.

The onscreen depictions of these famous men usually give us a skewed view of who they really were. It ends up being a romanticized version of these figures. Only a few show them as they really were, like the HBO film Lansky, which had Richard Dreyfuss playing the notorious mobster. It showed his rise as a gangster to his eventual exile to Israel. In the debut issue of The Verdict, we meet one such crime boss, who has been betrayed by everyone he knows, as he awaits his fate in court.

WE are taken to a courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, where a news anchor is presorting from the front steps, on the trial of Bernard” Dutch” James, one of the city’s most notorious criminals. As his case is being tried, he reminisces of his come-up, as he was merely a stickup kid, who runs multiple hustles including working at a local pizzeria. Everything changes one night, when someone holds up the pizzeria, and where Dutch becomes the hero, that night, killing the assailant and earning the owner’s trust. This where he gets pulled into the inner circle, one which leads him right to the top. By issue’s end, Dutch proves to be more than your typical mobster, showing he is more brains than brute force.

Overall, an engaging story that more than titillates the attention of the reader, it exudes cool in doing so. The story by Kwame Teague is smart and action-packed. The art by the creative team is gorgeous. Altogether, a story that adds its engaging villain to an already prestigious rogues gallery.

Story: Kwame Teague
Art: Michael Lee Harris, Josh Jensen, and Anthony Mathenia
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy