Tag: Oni Press

Smash Pages Q&A | Cullen Bunn + Brian Hurtt on the return of ‘The Sixth Gun’

The creators of the horror/Western ‘yarn’ talk about returning to their signature creation with a new Kickstarter project.

The 50-issue The Sixth Gun series — along with its several spin-off series — was a hallmark of independent comics publishing from 2010 to 2016. Co-creators Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt not only created a compelling “yarn” of a story that combined horror with the Western genre, but they also did a phenomenal job of creating a world that always seemed ripe for more exploration.

They wrapped up the initial story of Becky Montcrief, Arnold Drake and the battle for control of six mystical guns, and now Oni Press has announced The Sixth Gun Deluxe Omnibus Library, which is currently up on Kickstarter. Not only are they releasing all the issues of The Sixth Gun, plus all the spinoff miniseries, plus the spinoff series Shadow Roads, in this deluxe format, but Bunn and Hurtt are also creating new material for it — three new prelude stories will unlock as the campaign reaches new milestones over the course of its 30-day run. It’s also a precursor to a new The Sixth Gun project coming in 2025 for the comic’s 15th anniversary.

I spoke with both creators about what it’s like to return to The Sixth Gun after all this time, their collaborative process and what to expect from the new material they’re creating.

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Smash Pages Q&A | Nick Cagnetti on ‘The Chip’

The creator of ‘Pink Lemonade’ talks about his story in the first issue of the science fiction anthology ‘Xino.’

Oni Press will debut Xino this week, an anthology of “subversive, psych-surrealist science fiction to cure your awful awareness of our meager reality.” Over the course of three issues, they’ve assembled a talented roster of creators, with the first issue featuring stories by Phil Hester, Jordan Thomas and Shaky Kane, Melissa Flores and Daniel Irizarri, and Christopher Condon and Nick Cagnetti.

Cagnetti, best known for his work on Pink Lemonade, worked with Condon on a story titled “the Chip,” which is about the world’s first intravenous video game system and the impact it has on one of its users. Cagnetti was kind enough to answer a few questions about the story, as well as the upcoming collection of the entire Pink Lemonade series.

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Oni Press teases a new ‘The Sixth Gun’ project from Bunn + Hurtt

“Sometimes what’s dead doesn’t stay gone.”

Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun may have ended in 2016, but “Sometimes what’s dead doesn’t stay gone.”

A new teaser released by Oni Press today hints that a new The Sixth Gun project is on the way via Kickstarter. While the supernatural western had a definitive end, Bunn and Hurtt always hinted that they had more stories to tell, and even launched a second series, Shadow Roads, that was set in the same world.

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The Devil made them do it in ‘Let Me Out’

Emmett Nahil and George Williams revisit the late 1970s “satanic panic” in the new graphic novel from Oni Press.

Emmett Nahil and George Williams will revisit the “satanic panic” of the late 1970s in Let Me Out, a graphic novel coming from Oni Press in October.

The story is set in 1979 New Jersey, where a group of “queer and trans misfits” accused of murder decide that the devil might not be so bad.

“Let Me Out turns classic horror tropes on their head, while showcasing how marginalized people are sacrificed on the altars of power,” said Nahil, who makes his graphic novel debut with Let Me Out. “This is a story about what happens when a group of queer and trans friends are given the supernatural means to fight back. It is also about found family and the joy one finds in one’s friends, even amidst seemingly inescapable darkness.”

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Oni will publish ‘Quinnelope and the Cookie King Catastrophe’ in September

Find out who kidnapped the Cookie King in a story by HF Brownfield and Kayla Coombs.

The Cookie King is missing, and it’s up to Quinnelope to find him in Quinnelope and the Cookie King Catastrophe, the debut graphic novel by HF Brownfield and Kayla Coombs.

“Writing this book was an absolute blast,” Coombs said. “Brownfield and I have the same goofy sense of humor, so each page was a chance to crack each other up. There were moments when we laughed so hard, we could barely hold our pencils steady! We had a ball drawing Quinnelope to life, and we hope you’ll find her just as hilarious as we do.”

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Oni will collect Derek M. Ballard’s ‘Cartoonshow’ in August

The online strips pull from Ballard’s own life as a single father.

Oni Press has announced plans to collect Cartoonshow, the online comic strips of animator Derek M. Ballard, in August.

Ballard, who has worked on the megahit Adventure Time for Cartoon Network and on Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel, created the strips based on his own life as a single father.

“This book of cartoons is a whole slew of dumb, funny, embarrassing and true things that happened to my kids and me. Stuff that befalls average families every single day,” Ballard said. “Oni Press made it possible to support my family while I brought my uncompromised scribbly vision to the page. That’s a big deal. Unbelievable really. Extra special thanks to my editor Zack Soto.”

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Oni Press will publish Jay Stephens’ horrifying Harvey Comics tribute ‘Dwellings’

The three-issue prestige series begins in August.

Cartoonist/animator Jay Stephens will team with Oni Press for a new printing of Dwellings, his bloody ode to Harvey Comics and the rot that lives beneath suburbia.

Stephens previously crowdfunded the series, which won a Doug Wright Award last year. Oni will publish three 72-page prestige format issues of Dwellings bi-monthly starting in August.

“As a young collector in the days before the internet, before our town even dreamt of a comic shop, I remember walking the train tracks on weekends, hunting back issues at garage sales and flea markets, picking up whatever I could find,” Stephens said. “Though considered uncool, I was magnetically attracted to the irresistibly adorable Harvey comics… Casper, Spooky, Wendy and Hot Stuff in particular… and always kept an eye out for that one issue where they finally revealed who murdered Casper the Friendly Ghost. If the definition of nostalgia is to ‘return home in pain,’ Dwellings is the most nostalgic work I’ve ever produced. And my re-imagining of that darker Harvey Comics backstory has festered and intertwined with my personal fears into something truly frightening.”

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Quick Hits | ‘Dilbert’ fallout

Also: news on Dina Norlund, Cartoonist Cooperative, the Minicomic Awards and more.

With the comic strip Dilbert being dropped by both newspapers and its distributor after its creator’s racist remarks on YouTube, many newspapers have a gap to fill on their comics page. The Washington Post will fill their Dilbert-sized hole with Heart of the City by Steenz, and Women Write About Comics caught up with the cartoonist at the Emerald City Comic Con to talk about the change.

“I think it’s a big deal because of two reasons,” Steenz told WWAC. “Reason number one is that I’m Black, and he hates Black people. [laughs] No, but it’s a nice way to just stick it to him, you know? But it’s also a big deal because we still rarely see a new influx of creators and syndicated comic strips, and I would like to see more of that. Obviously, legacy comics are there for a reason. Everyone’s going to want to keep reading Zits, everyone’s going to keep reading, you know, Jump Start, because those creators are still around and they want to keep making those comics. But I also want to see some new things. You should be able to get a newspaper and find someone new and not just have the old standards.”

In related news, the Associated Press spoke with several cartoonists about Scott Adams and his remarks, including Candorville creator Darin Bell, who is running a response to Adams in his comic strip this week.

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Slugfest | Rounding up news from ComicsPro

Find out what Marvel, Mad Cave, BOOM! and more revealed to retailers this week.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Today we take a look at several projects announced this week during the ComicsPro meeting. Hit the links for more information.

This week’s ComicsPro meeting in Pittsburgh — that’s the retailers’ industry meeting where publishers present their plans to them, among many other activities — brought news from DC, Marvel, Skybound and several more publishers. We already covered DC’s new crossover series, Knight Terrors, and their manga news, as well as the new shared universe coming from Skybound. But there was a lot more revealed at the meeting.

It’s interesting to see what the ComicsPro meeting has evolved into over the years. There was a time when the meeting was pretty clandestine, as publishers talked directly to retailers, and journalists and bloggers would try to suss out what was revealed because press weren’t invited to the meeting. Well, except one — Matthew Price, who wrote about comics for the Oklahoman, is also a comics retailer, and I’d remember, when I was at Blog@Newsarama and maybe even Robot 6, following his writing to see what came out of those meetings. (Nowadays we get multiple press releases, and keynote speeches are regularly posted online — here’s this year’s).

I mention this because this week was also Price’s last week at the Oklahoman; here’s his final farewell letter for the publication, where he worked for more than two decades. Best of luck to him as he focuses not only on Speeding Bullet Comics but also his Substack, where he’ll continue to write about comics.

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Oni Press will publish Bunn + Susini’s ‘Lamentation’ beginning in May

The gothic horror story involves a disturbing play that begins to bleed into our reality.

Horror master Cullen Bunn will once again work with Oni Press on a new horror title — Lamentation, a “horror/gothic/giallo” story featuring artwork by Arjuna Sushini.

According to Bunn in his newsletter, “Lamentation reveals the story of the cast and crew of a theatrical production of ‘Razide’s Lament.’ This strange play seems to be bleeding into our reality… and no one can leave the theater until it has been performed for a group of mysterious critics. Madness and murder ensue.”

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Quick Hits | Behind the scenes at Oni Press

Plus: News on Ron Zimmerman, Paul Coker Jr., Frederik L. Schodt, Ed Brubaker and more.

Publishers | Although it might be hard to believe that there’s anyone left at the Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Company to speak anonymously at this point, Popverse has an interview up with one such staffer, who gives more details on what’s been going on behind the scenes — and offers some context about that not-at-all-thought-out statement that was released on social media. The statement, the anonymous source says, came from parent company Polarity. “They thought it was so good. They did not listen to anyone who told them it was not, and then we reaped the whirlwind of their failure, like pretty much every week this month.”

This unsurprising account by the anonymous staffer follows several rounds of layoffs and departures from the Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Company. Associate publisher Michelle Nguyen left the company voluntarily, following the layoffs of James Lucas Jones, Charlie Chu, Alex Segura, Amanda Meadows, Jasmini Amiri and Henry Barajas in July.

Publishers | Both The Beat and Popverse have reported that webcomics platform Tapas Media has laid off several staff in what’s being described as both a consolidation with sister companies Radish and Wuxiaworld, as well as a shift toward more user-generated content. Bleeding Cool reports that Tapas Media Chief Creative Officer Michele Wells is one of the people impacted by the layoffs. All three companies are owned by Kakao Entertainment, which acquired them in 2021.

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Quick Hits | 2021 comic sales topped $2 billion

Last year was the best year ever for comic sales, according to a new report. Plus: News on Oni/Lion Forge, Substack, Zestworld, Henry Barajas, Kieron Gillen and more.

Comics sales | Milton Griepp of ICV2.com and John Jackson Miller of Comichron.com have released their annual assessment of the comics and graphic novel market for last year, noting that sales grew 62% in 2021 over the prior year in the U.S. and Canada to approximately $2.075 billion. They were also up 70% when compared to pre-pandemic 2019.

“Publishers made more selling comics content than in any year in the history of the business, even when adjusted for inflation,” Miller said of the 2021 estimates. “The biggest year in the modern era, 1993, saw sales of around $1.6 billion in 2021 dollars — and the pricier product mix puts 2021 ahead of what the colossal circulations of the early 1950s brought in, also adjusted for inflation.”

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