Uncivilized Books will publish Ozge Samanci’s ‘Evil Eyes Sea’ + more next year

The publisher’s spring line also includes ‘Maple Terrace’ by Noah Van Sciver and Jenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler’s ‘The Sickness.’

Uncivilized Books has announced plans to publish a new graphic novel and two collections of their single-issue series next spring.

“Uncivilized has championed innovative comics, graphic novels, and criticism for over a decade, and our spring publications embody all our obsessions,” Uncivilized Books Publisher and CEO Tom Kaczynski said, “from Ozge Samanci’s treasure hunt and political thriller to Noah Van Sciver’s nostalgic memories of the comic book collectors craze to Jenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler’s unsettling historical horror epic.” 

Evil Eyes Sea by Ozge Samanci is a “feminist political mystery” set in Turkey in 1995.

“The autobiographically-inspired story I tell in Evil Eyes Sea emerged from my college years in Istanbul, my quirky friends, and my struggles with being a young woman in Turkey’s male-centric culture,” Samanci said. “In this book, I share a window into a country where narrow political views limit personal power — a place that can be beautiful, but also cruel.”

You can read more about Evil Eyes Sea, as well as the collections of Maple Terrace and The Sickness, below.

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Oni Press will publish Jay Stephens’ horrifying Harvey Comics tribute ‘Dwellings’

The three-issue prestige series begins in August.

Cartoonist/animator Jay Stephens will team with Oni Press for a new printing of Dwellings, his bloody ode to Harvey Comics and the rot that lives beneath suburbia.

Stephens previously crowdfunded the series, which won a Doug Wright Award last year. Oni will publish three 72-page prestige format issues of Dwellings bi-monthly starting in August.

“As a young collector in the days before the internet, before our town even dreamt of a comic shop, I remember walking the train tracks on weekends, hunting back issues at garage sales and flea markets, picking up whatever I could find,” Stephens said. “Though considered uncool, I was magnetically attracted to the irresistibly adorable Harvey comics… Casper, Spooky, Wendy and Hot Stuff in particular… and always kept an eye out for that one issue where they finally revealed who murdered Casper the Friendly Ghost. If the definition of nostalgia is to ‘return home in pain,’ Dwellings is the most nostalgic work I’ve ever produced. And my re-imagining of that darker Harvey Comics backstory has festered and intertwined with my personal fears into something truly frightening.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha

The writer and artist of ‘Black Stars Above’ discuss the Lovecraftian horror tale, the tone and texture of the tale, and more.

Black Stars Above is a comic by Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha, which was just collected by Vault Comics. Set in 1887, this Lovecraftian horror tale is set in the Canadian frontier, and the story itself is this eerie, atmospheric horror story. You can read the complete first issue right here on Smash Pages.

But what fascinated me most was the small details in how both Nadler and Cha told the story — from the artist’s details that went into capturing the feel of the period to the language and the journal entries to the landscapes.

It’s a stunning book, and the two were kind enough to answer a few questions about the project, what they took from Lovecraft and more.

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Read the entire first issue of ‘Black Stars Above’

Check out the entirety of the first chapter of the Vault Comics title by Lonnie Nadler, Jenna Cha, Brad Simpson and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Courtesy of Vault Comics, we’re pleased to present the entire first issue of Black Stars Above by Lonnie Nadler, Jenna Cha, Brad Simpson and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Described as a “chilling historical cosmic horror tale of survival,” the story features a desperate young fur trapper in 1887 Northern Canada who is hired to deliver a package:

The year is 1887 and a storm brews. A young fur trapper flees her overbearing family only to get lost in a dreamlike winter wilderness that harbours a cosmic threat. The fur trade is dead and the nation is changing. Yet, Eulalie Dubois has spent her entire life tending to her family’s trapline, isolated from the world. A chance at freedom comes in the form of a parcel that needs delivering to a nameless town north of the wilderness. Little does Eulalie know, something sinister hides in those woods and it yearns for what she has.

It’s a series that Shane Bailey said is “a masterclass in building tension and dread,” and is “the equivalent of a Shepard Tone, the illusion of the ever-rising note. Eventually the musician ends the song, ending that tension. In this case, though, I really don’t want it to end.”

You can check out the first issue below, and look for the just-released trade paperback at a comic shop near you.

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