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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

“A Chinese James Bond” The Manchurian with writer Pornsak Pichetshote

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“less about, China versus America.. what he really believes is the power of community”. Award winning co-creator of The Good Asian, sak Pichetshote returns to talk about his visonary new project for Image Comics: a series of five one-shot comic books titled The Horizon Experiment. Each has a unique creative team inventing an original protagonist from a marginalized background set in genres such as horror or espionage, or inspired by icons like Indiana Jones or John Constantine.

Pichetshote’s entry in the series, The Manchurian, is more than a James Bond who “just so happens to be Chinese”- he is a spy whose identity is core to the narrative. There’s also Finders/Keepers from Vita Ayala and Skyler Partridge in which a Boricua archaeologist returns an artifact from a museum to the people from whom it was stolen.

The Manchurian, with artists Terry and Rachel Dodson is out now as is The Sacred Damned and more on the way from creative teams that bridge comics, literature, film and television. 

Here’s my 2021 convo about The Good Asian with sak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi.

The Horizon Experiment gets Connecting Covers by Tula Lotay

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Get a sneak peek at The Horizon Experiment’s connecting variant covers reveals stunning artwork by Eisner Award-winning artist Tula Lotay, highlighting the original protagonists from the series of five one-shots. Led by award-winning creator Pornsak Pichetshote and editor Will Dennis, The Horizon Experiment features all-star talent from across entertainment re-envisioning popular genre fare and iconic characters through a diverse lens for the comic book series. The debut issue, The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian, written by Pichetshote and illustrated by superstar artists Terry and Rachel Dodson, hits shelves in September. 

Lotay is known for not only her gorgeous cover art, but also for her groundbreaking work in comics, film and editorial illustration, including being the artist on Image Comics’ Supreme: Blue Rose, written by Warren Ellis. She won an Eisner Award in 2023 for her work on comic book series Barnstormers: A Ballad of Love and Murder for Best Digital Comic alongside writer Scott Snyder, and in 2024 for SOMNA: A Bedtime Story for Best New Series alongside co-creator Becky Cloonan, which were also edited by Dennis, a frequent co-collaborator.

The Horizon Experiment series kicks off on September 25 with The Manchurian, a scintillating thriller full of secrets and scandal, featuring a Chinese super spy inspired by James Bond. Future issues include a horror tale led by a female Muslim exorcist The Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned (by Sabir Pirzada and Michael Walsh), East African werewolf horror The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs (by Tananarive Due and Kelsey Ramsey), “Evil Dead for blerds” horror-comedy The Horizon Experiment: Motherfu*kin’ Monsters (by J. Holtham and Michael Lee Harris), and “reverse Indiana Jones” action-adventure The Horizon Experiment: Finders / Keepers (by Vita Ayala and Skylar Patridge). The five issues will be released on a monthly basis, starting in September.

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

  • Cover A by Terry and Rachel Dodson – Lunar code 0724IM267
  • Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting) – Lunar code 0724IM268)
  • Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting) – Lunar code 0724IM269

The Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, October 23 (FOC September 30):

  • Cover A by Michael Walsh – Lunar Code 0824IM324
  • Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting) – Lunar Code 0824IM325
  • Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting) – Lunar Code 0824IM326

The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, November 20 (FOC October 28):

  • Cover A by Kelsey Ramsay and José Villarrubia – Lunar code 0924IM284
  • Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting) – Lunar code 0924IM285
  • Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting) – Lunar code 0924IM286

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)