What if all urban legends were rooted in reality? That haunting question is explored by a group of young vigilantes in Urban Legendz, a new graphic novel from Paul Downs, Nick Bruno, and Michael Yates, and ahead of the new story's release in hardcover on June 12th from Humanoids, we've been provided with exclusive preview pages to share with Daily Dead readers.

Not even the toilet is safe from a deadly attack in our exclusive preview pages below, and you can learn more about Urban Legendz by visiting Humanoids' official website.

"After his mother’s death, Dwayne is forced to uproot himself and move into the home where his mother grew up: a shabby apartment in Brooklyn. When your dad is a police officer, and your brother’s too cool for school, what's an insecure teen supposed to do? Dwayne’s personal problems are cast aside when he joins a new crew of young vigilantes, devoted to solving a series of sinister cases surrounding mysterious monsters that have been wreaking havoc throughout the city. What if all of the Urban Legends we all fear...were real?

Paul Downs is a screenwriter, animator and educator with seventeen years of experience spanning film, commercial and video game production. Paul has written and developed projects for Cartoon Network, 20th Century Fox, and a live-action family film being produced by Smart Entertainment (Blades of Glory, Anger Management, Paul's animation credits include Robots, Ice Age franchise, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, Rio, Epic, Free Birds, Spies in Disguise, the 2017 Oscar® nominated fim Ferdinand as well as the two short films Surviving Sid and the Oscar® nominated No Time for Nuts. Paul lives in Florida, with his wife Jen and their two children, where he teaches Story/Animation at Ringling College of Art and Design.

Nick Bruno is an American film director and animator at Blue Sky Studios, who in 2019 will make his Directorial debut with the animated Spies in Disguise. Bruno was born and raised in Mohegan Lake, New York, where, at an early age, he learned he could combine his love for drawing and filmmaking by pursuing a career in animation. He studied illustration and the fine arts at UMass Dartmouth, and went on to receive his Masters at NYU studying computer animation. In 2005, Bruno joined Blue Sky Studios as a junior animator on the feature film Ice Age: The Meltdown. In 2015, VARIETY named Bruno one of their “Ten Animators to Watch.” Bruno resides in New York state with his wife Allison and their three children.

Michael Yates is a story artist and director living in Northern California. He currently works as a story artist at PIXAR Animation Studios where his credits include Cars 3and the upcoming Toy Story. Before that, Michael worked on Guillermo Del Toro's Trollhunters at DreamWorks Animation Studios. His previous clients include Walt Disney Animation studios and the Cartoon Network series Craig of the Creek. He also co-directed the award winning short Legend of the Flying Tomato."

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    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.