In early 2017, Dark Horse announced Berger Books, a new line of creator-owned comic books and graphic novels, from Karen Berger, the legendary, award-winning comic book editor and founder of DC Comics’ influential imprint Vertigo. Today, Dark Horse has revealed the new imprint’s premiere titles. Berger Books will release four new comics series, each to be later collected as a graphic novel: Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose; Incognegro: Renaissance by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece; Mata Hari by Emma Beeby and Ariela Kristantina, and The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja. Berger Books will also publish a tenth-anniversary edition of Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece and The Originals: The Essential Edition by Dave Gibbons.
Author, chef and Emmy award-winning television star Anthony Bourdain and acclaimed writer Joel Rose tell haunting tales of terror, irritable spirits, and horribly strange beings in Hungry Ghosts, a four-issue anthology series including art by Vanesa Del Rey, Leo Manco, Alberto Ponticelli, Paul Pope, and Mateus Santolouco. Inspired by the Japanese Edo Period game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai or 100 Candles, played by samurai warriors to test their courage, Hungry Ghosts reimagines this classic game of dread and terror as a circle of international chefs invoke modern tales of horror, terrifying yokai, yorei, and obake, all with the common thread of food. Hungry Ghosts #1 goes on sale January 31, 2018.
Acclaimed novelist Mat Johnson and veteran artist Warren Pleece reunite for Incognegro: Renaissance, a new prequel series that follows cub reporter Zane Pinchback through the glittering nightlife of the Harlem Renaissance as he goes undercover, passing as white, for the first time. The first issue (of five) goes on sale February 7, 2018. This new series is a perfect companion to the tenth-anniversary edition of the 2008 Vertigo graphic novel, Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery. Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery features enhanced toned art, an afterword by Mat Johnson, character sketches, and other additional material. Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery finds Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay “incognegro” long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother—and himself. Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery goes on sale February 6, 2018, and is available for preorder on Amazon, Penguin Random House, and at your local comic shop.
Breakout talent, writer Emma Beeby and artist Ariela Kristantina join together for a new five-issue series based on the controversial and historical figure, Mata Hari. Mata Hari is notorious as the original “stripper-spy”: exotic dancer, convicted double agent, and femme fatale. Executed by a French firing squad in 1917, many have since questioned the conviction. A century after her death, Mata Hari tells her story through fictional diary excerpts, drawn from biographies of the real woman whose past has been shrouded in mystery by both the lies of her accusers and the outlandish stories she told about herself. The first issue of Mata Hari goes on sale February 21, 2018.
Award-winning artist David Aja and filmmaker, journalist and writer Ann Nocenti team up for The Seeds, a new four-issue series. In an imminent America where fact-based reporting is gasping its last breath, an idealistic journalist stumbles into the story of a lifetime, only to realize that she can’t report it. Instead, she has to pitch the biggest myth of her career. An eco-fiction tech-thriller where flora and fauna have begun to mutate, The Seeds is also a story of love beyond race and gender, and of the resilience of both human and animal kind. The first issue of The Seeds goes on sale March 28, 2018.
The Originals: The Essential Edition is an oversized new edition of Vertigo’s 2004 Eisner award-winning graphic novel from comics legend, Dave Gibbons. In a retro-futuristic city of industrial gray where hover scooters, music, and drugs rule the street, The Originals are the toughest, most stylish gang around. For two childhood friends, nothing is more important than being one of them, but being part of the crowd will bring its own deadly consequences. This new edition includes 32 pages of never-before-seen development art, process pieces, and behind the scenes extras—all annotated by Gibbons. The Originals: The Essential Edition goes on sale April 18, 2018.
On the surface, The Seeds #1 seems like a winner. It’s a story featuring a harried journalist looking for the truth in an age of clickbait, a wall between a technology and non-technology using area, alien sex, and is Hawkeye and Immortal Iron Fist‘s David Aja‘s return to interior art. However, Ann Nocenti’s plotting jumps all over the place from anecdotes about bees and sex and Chairman Mao to interspersed images of crows and finally, the “good part” of the comic, the story of the aforementioned journalist Astra. I like the idea that the world of The Seeds is much like our own and a little bit like Cold War Berlin with a Neo-Luddite twist. But Nocenti’s worldbuilding comes in fits and cryptic starts.
It was new comic book day yesterday! What’d folks get? What’d you like? What’d you dislike? Sound off in the comments below! While you think about that, here’s some comic news and reviews from around the web.
Wednesdays are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in!
