James Tynion IV and Michael Walsh will bring an “exquisite corpse” to comics in May with the aptly titled Exquisite Corpses, a new series that assembles a group of creators to tell the story of one small town plagued by a dozen killers.
The comic will be published by Image Comics through Tynion’s Tiny Onion imprint.
In his newsletter, Tynion described it as a “high-octane horror comic that sees 12 of the deadliest and most colorful killers in the world descend on a small town to see who will be the last killer standing. It’s the story of those killers, the ordinary people of that small town who have to survive their deadly melee, and the wealthy families that sponsored the killers and unleashed them in the first place.”
Some of the creators participating include Adam Gorham, Becca Carey, Che Grayson, Claire Roe, Gavin Fullerton, Jordie Bellaire, Marianna Ignazzi, Pornsak Pichetshote, Tyler Boss and Valentine De Landro.
“Sometimes you have an idea, and you know it’s crackling with energy and potential but you have to wait for the right moment to unleash it,” Tynion said in the press release. “When the final pieces were falling into place for the formation of Tiny Onion, the first call I made was to pitch Michael Walsh the story of Exquisite Corpses. Later that week, Michael had sketches of the first dangerous killers, and the ideas have been flowing rapid-fire for almost a year and a half since. We’re trying to bring the kind of energy and excitement that’s usually reserved in the comics space for a superhero comic or licensed property. That’s why we’re calling this a horror comics event. We feel like this has the potential to be something really special and lasting.”
The exquisite corpse concept originated at the beginning of the previous century, as surrealists turned writing stories and drawing images into a game — which is exactly how Tynion described what they’re doing here.
“In a lot of ways, Exquisite Corpses is a game developed by me and Michael Walsh, and the first players of that game were the creators we brought onboard to help bring the story to life,” Tynion said. “The two of us spent a year building out the ground rules for a story and the universe around it. As a part of that, we built twelve absolutely terrifying killers, each with an incredible design and a horrifying backstory. We built a detailed bible about the town of Oak Valley, Maine and the characters that reside there. I wrote the 60-page first issue, which serves as the introduction to the game, and lays out its rules and its stakes. We also laid out storytelling rules. I laid them out on the writing side, and Michael laid them out on the art side. We wanted coherence, for the entire thing to read as a singular unified experience, not something disjointed and individuated. We wanted the whole to be elevated from the group collaboration off the original core concepts.”
Walsh and Tynion previously worked together on an issue of Walsh’s anthology comic The Silver Coin, and Walsh said he’s been itching to work with the writer again ever since.
” … when he approached me with the kernel of the idea that would become Exquisite Corpses, I knew it would be something special,” Walsh said. “We brought in some of the brightest voices in comics to flesh out the series, which felt thematically and conceptually perfect. From there, things just kept growing until we had a colossal horror event comic on our hands.”
Here’s a look at the first issue’s variant covers, which feature some of the different assassins, by James Stokoe, Alex Eckman-Lawn, Nimit Malavia and Jae Lee:
Tiny Onion will also embark on a year-long, national signing tour—dubbed Corpse Tour ’25—with stops to coincide with each Exquisite Corpses issue release. Each event will feature Tynion in conversation with local Exquisite Corpses creators, with a Q&A and signing to follow. Corpse Tour ‘25 will kick off with a release party in May. The 60-page issue arrives in stores May 14.