School is in session at The Carlyle School for Kings this fall, which features classes in revenge, friendship, romance and betrayal.
The story is by screenwriter Nelson Greaves, who wrote the 2014 film Unfriended, and artist Davide Castelluccio. They’re joined by colorist Francesca Vivaldi and letterer Frank Cvetkovic for the story of Emmelene Heron and her time at a school that prepares you to be king.
“Carlyle was born from the trauma I experienced as a country boy at a cut-throat Ivy League university,” said Greaves, who attended Harvard. “The culture encouraged us to win by any means necessary, and it wasn’t a Monday if you weren’t getting torn down, mocked and stabbed in the back. Unlike Emme, no one actually tried to kill me, and there wasn’t a giant living under my dining hall, but school still felt like a fight for my life, and I wanted to tell a story for anyone who’d felt that way, too.”
There’s nothing like a story built from trauma, especially Ivy League trauma:
Emmelene Heron is the daughter of traitors, but even she cannot be denied entrance to the Carlyle School for Kings. For thousands of years, the academy has opened its doors to the best and brightest youth in the Kingdom. There, they are trained in matters of heart, strength, and mind, and the one deemed most exceptional will be crowned king for the next 30 years when the King Cycle repeats. This decree was enacted by Godwit himself to ensure the King is young enough that hope and idealism still thrive within them—but if they want hope and idealism, they invited the wrong girl.
“Carlyle is a comic which encompassed many different moods, with a story that is surprising page after page,” Casteluccio said. “I was pretty shocked by some of the plot turns!”
The first issue of four arrives from Dark Horse Comics on Oct. 30.