After resurrecting EC Comics with Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe, Oni Press will continue to expand the eerie universe of EC Comics on January 8th with the first issue of Cruel Kingdom, a new frightful fantasy anthology series that brings the classic EC Comics brand of horror into the ancient times of swords, sorcery, and dark magic.
Ahead of the first issue's anticipated release, we've been provided with an exclusive preview of unlettered pages from writer Chris Condon and artist Charlie Adlard's "Death & Pickaxes," a story that gives a terrifying twist to a classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
Below, you can check out our exclusive early look at "Death & Pickaxes" as well as the cover art for Cruel Kingdom #1 (including the "Library Variant" cover by Tom Fowler with Nick Filardi), and we also have an exclusive quote from Chris Condon about teaming up with Charlie Adlard to create a scary version of Snow White:
"It's been well-publicized just how dark the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales were in their initial form. You think you know a story, but then you discover that originally the character had x, y, or z done to them or that they did unimaginably violent things to someone else. Well, I took that concept and ran with it for 'Death & Pickaxes,' my first dark fantasy story for Oni Press and EC Comics which I'm proud to have done with a master like Charlie Adlard. We take the threads of the classic Grimm fairy tale of 'Snow White' and twist it ever-so-slightly, introducing the idea of an eighth dwarf whose role in the story has been lost to time... for a rather dark and horrifying reason."
We also have the official press release with additional details on Cruel Kingdom #1:
Press Release: PORTLAND, OR (November 26, 2024) - THESE TOMES OF TERROR CERTAINLY HAVE AN APPETITE! Oni Press – the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997 – is proud to reveal the stunningly secretive 1:100 “Library Variant” cover for January’s CRUEL KINGDOM #1, featuring the voraciously violent titles of EC past come to life from master artist Tom Fowler (MAD Magazine, Refrigerator Full of Heads)
Fowler is the latest to join an all-star cast of visionary talents in the next, history-making entry in EC’s resurrection at Oni Press with CRUEL KINGDOM #1 – EC’s first-ever dark-fantasy anthology conjuring tales of magic, myth, and murder from forbidden realms long before our own!
On January 8th, behold the bloody and barbarous age of wizards, knights, and dragons as reimagined in the immutable EC manner as master scribes Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine, That Texas Blood), Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk), and Greg Pak (Darth Vader) couple their forces with iron-wrought artists Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), Kano (Cruel Universe), and Leomacs (Ghostlore), and Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead) to forge a terrifying new vision of death, life, and adventure “Once Upon a Time..”
For the first time, gaze inside this 40-page compendium of sadistic sorcery with an advance look ahead at what terrors await as EC Comics splices high fantasy and unholy horrors together in CRUEL KINGDOM #1:
“Since the beginning of EC’s resurrection at Oni Press, we’ve always aimed to extend the patented and powerful EC formula into new and unexpected arenas. First came our first-ever foray into holiday tales with SHIVER SUSPENSTORIES… But CRUEL KINGDOM is our biggest and boldest swerve yet as EC turns its dark gaze toward the golden spires of high fantasy – with its many fairies, witches, and sword-wielding warriors – for the very first time,” said Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson. “Picking up exactly where its predecessor CRUEL UNIVERSE is leaving off with its final issue in December, these are delectably dark and deadly inversions of the genre conventions you know and love – where wizards wield curses instead of grant wishes, and every knight harbors a dark secret instead of a valiant heart.”
From the twisted minds that spawned EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS, CRUEL UNIVERSE, and SHIVER SUSPENSTORIES, steel thyself for 40 pages of fatal fantasy in one cursed tome of comic book enchantment on January 8th, only in CRUEL KINGDOM #1 – featuring legendary covers by Adam Pollina (X-Force), Liam Sharp (Starhenge), Jay Stephens (Dwellings), Rian Hughes (The Multiversity), and Tom Fowler (Mad Magazine)!
So it has been foretold: Where once CRUEL UNIVERSE beckoned, now CRUEL KINGDOM shall reign! The next must-read EC Comics milestone arrives in comic shops everywhere on January 8th in CRUEL KINGDOM #1!
CRUEL KINGDOM #1 (of 4)
WRITTEN BY AL EWING, CHRIS CONDON & GREG PAK
ART BY KANO, LEOMACS & CHARLIE ADLARD
COVER A BY ADAM POLLINA
COVER B BY LIAM SHARP
COVER C (GOLD FOIL) BY ADAM POLLINA
COVER D (SILVER FOIL) BY LIAM SHARP
HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY ADAM POLLINA
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT RIAN (1:50) BY RIAN HUGHES
LIBRARY VARIANT (1:100) BY TOM FOWLER WITH NICK FILARDI
BLANK SKETCH COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
ON SALE JANUARY 8th | $4.99 | 40 PGS. | FC
IOD: 12/01/2024
FOC: 12/02/2024
About Oni Press
Founded in 1997, Oni Press has a 25-year history as one of the industry’s most respected and acclaimed publishers of award-winning comic books and graphic novels with titles including Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun, Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer, Ezra Clayton Daniels' Upgrade Soul, Brenna Thummler’s Sheets trilogy, and many hundreds more. In 2019, Oni Press merged with Lion Forge Comics – the Eisner Award-winning independent comic book publisher founded by Academy Award-winning producer and entrepreneur David Steward II – to create one of the largest, independent libraries of comics content anywhere in media. The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group now exists as a publishing subsidiary of Steward’s diversified global media company, Polarity.
The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group publishes more than 60 original and licensed graphic novels annually, in addition to an extensive list of periodical comics.
About EC Comics
As the birthplace of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, MAD MAGAZINE, WEIRD SCIENCE, and more of the most influential and celebrated comic series ever published, EC Comics has cemented itself as one of the central nerves of American pop culture with a legacy that spans more than seven decades. From 1944 to 1956, EC – established as "Educational Comics" by founder M.C. Gaines and later rebranded "Entertaining Comics" under the leadership of Publisher & Editor William M. Gaines – led a creative renaissance for the comics industry that, for the first time, elevated the once-derided comics medium into the echelons of English literature and high art. Heralded as "one of the great explosions of vox-pop literature" by Time Magazine and "fiercely honest, politically adversarial, [and] visually masterful" by The Comics Journal, EC's line of comics books - which collectively sold more than 10 million copies annually at their peak – entertained and informed in equal measure, using brilliantly crafted tales of horror, science fiction, satire, and battlefield conflict to critique and subvert America's dark impulses toward violence, racism, inequity, environmental destruction, and war.
Forcibly shuttered by the Comics Code Authority – a pro-censorship group specifically tasked with eradicating EC's illuminating influence from the American comic book industry – in 1956, EC's unique brand of subversive storytelling lived on through the continued success of MAD Magazine, which would fuel American counterculture through the death of Publisher William M. Gaines in 1992. EC's titles and stories have been adapted in a number of media – including the long-running HBO's long-running TALES FROM THE CRYPT franchise of television series and feature films – and continue to be celebrated by multiple generations of comic creators, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians as a seminal influence.
Today, EC Comics' canon of classic stories can continuously be found in print through new editions at Dark Horse Comics, TASCHEN, Fantagraphics, and IDW Publishing. In 2024, EC announced a new partnership with multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher Oni Press to produce the first all-new EC Comics titles in nearly 70 years.
Exclusive Unlettered Preview from Cruel Kingdom #1:
Library Variant Cover (1:100) by Tom Fowler with Nick Filardi:
COVER A BY ADAM POLLINA:
COVER B BY LIAM SHARP:
HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS:
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT BY ADAM POLLINA:
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY RIAN HUGHES:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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