Jeff Loveness and Lisandro Estherren will bring aliens into the Cold War in Strange Skies Over East Berlin, a new four-issue miniseries coming from BOOM! Studios in October. Evan Cagle will provide covers.
“Through comics, I’ve been able to write space operas, dark religious epics and superhero stories, and now I can’t wait to write a sci-fi horror set within the bleak, creeping dread of the Cold War,” said Loveness. “The Iron Curtain surveillance state of East Germany is now far enough removed from us to seem shockingly familiar. It’s been humbling to research that world, only to see how many sad parallels of it we still endure today. There’s body-horror and sci-fi creeping through the paranoia of the story, but it’s also about what it means to be American in a world slipping away from you… a world that was perhaps never truly there to begin with.”
Here’s how BOOM! describes the series:
It’s 1973, and Herring, a disillusioned American spy, has spent the entire Cold War infiltrating the inner circles of East German intelligence for a cause he barely believes in anymore. He’s seen everything and done anything his government asked but his latest mission pits the brilliant embittered operative against an enemy force so vast it could obliterate all of humanity.
The Space Race had greater consequences than even the Soviets could have guessed, and when they sent the first human ever to the stars, something not quite human followed them back. When a mysterious alien probe lands outside East Berlin and into Soviet control, the Americans send their top spy in to investigate. But as Herring gets ever closer to the truth at the heart of the conspiracy, he may find that the power he so desperately seeks is too dangerous for anyone to control or contain.
“I’m thrilled to work with Jeff on a story that mixes different genres so well, that has this deep human touch, and also lets me try some new graphic techniques,” Estherren said. “I think readers will love it!”
Look for the first issue on Oct. 2.
