Writer Fred Van Lente and artist Chris Panda will set a madman loose inside the “Storybook Kingdom” theme park down in Florida in Murder Kingdom, a new title coming from Mad Cave Studios this fall.
Any similarities to existing Florida theme parks is, of course, coincidental. But Murder Kingdom is about a slasher who starts killing cast members, and it’s up to one fairytale princess to unmask the killer.
“Murder Kingdom riffs on classic slashers and classic fairy tales in equal measure,” said Fred Van Lente. “It’s a giallo whodunit with a tomboy princess detective who has to make sure she and her best friend live to see the sunrise—and that means unmasking the killer. One of my first jobs was as a fry cook at a theme park and I feel like I’ve been working on this project ever since. I’m so thrilled that the team at Mad Cave have helped me bring it to bloody life. And I am so lucky to have Chris on artwork. His work is equal parts adorable and terrifying, resulting in some of the most shocking kills I’ve seen in any horror comic ever.”
Here’s the description from Mad Cave:
Once upon a time, in a strange land called Florida, a masked psycho starts murdering cast members of the Storybook Kingdom theme park in ways identical to the gory original Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Princess-turned-detective Tanith is the only person who can unmask the killer before she and her friends are all Dying Unhappily Never After!
“This has been a dream come true project mixing three things I’m really fond of: theme parks, horror and fairy tales,” Panda said. “When Fred and Mad Cave first sent me the pitch for Murder Kingdom, it took me five seconds to be sold on that project with just those three elements. On top of that, I have been a huge fan of Fred’s works for years so helping him bring that whole universe he created to life has been a blast. Him and the team have been stellar in letting my creativity go wild in designing every aspect of the storybook kingdom world.”
Take a look at some of Panda’s interior art for the first issue:
The first issue arrives in stores Oct. 9.