Over the course of about two years, Molly Knox Ostertag serialized a comic called Darkest Night on her Substack. Now the award-winning creator of The Girl from the Sea and Witch Boy has revealed the cover to the print version of the story, which will be titled The Deep Dark.
First Second will publish the graphic novel next June, as Ostertag undergoes the process of converting the original art, which was made for scrolling on a device, to print pages.
“I’ve spent the past few months turning those long scrolling updates into graphic novel spreads and cursing my past self for being so chaotic about how I layer my photoshop files,” she said in her latest newsletter. “I also hand lettered everything, which looks so good that I’m furious because now I HAVE to hand letter all future projects.”
Ostertag was one of several creators who took part in the first wave of Substack comics, along with James Tynion IV, Saladin Ahmed, Jeff Lemire and several others. Here’s the description she shared for Darkest Night when it launched:
Magdalena Hererra, Mags to everyone, was born with a secret. She keeps the secret locked in the basement, where it cannot hurt anyone else. She feeds the secret, every day. No one knows the secret, besides her family—and her childhood best friend, who is back in town after being gone for ten years.
Look for The Deep dark to arrive in stores on June 4, and check out Ostertag’s newsletter to see the cover creation process.