Ec: Cruel Kingdom Vol. 1 - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

WHERE ONCE A CRUEL UNIVERSE BECKONED . . . NOW A CRUEL KINGDOM SHALL REIGN! Oni Press is proud to unveil a spellbinding new chapter in the distinguished lineage of EC history! Enter Cruel Kingdom--EC's first-ever dark-fantasy anthology conjuring tales of MAGIC, MYTH, and MURDER from forbidden realms long before our own!

Behold the bloody and barbarous age of wizards, knights, and dragons as reimagined in the immutable EC manner as master scribes Christopher Cantwell (Out of Alcatraz), Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine), Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk), Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), Greg Pak (World War Hulk), Ben H. Winters (Benjamin), and more couple their forces with iron-wrought artists Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), PJ Holden (Judge Dredd), Kano (Gotham Central), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Leomacs (Benjamin), John McCrea (Hitman), Andrea Mutti (Rebels), and more to forge a terrifying new vision of death, life, and adventure "once upon a time."

From the twisted minds that spawned Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe, steel thyself for EC's first rite of fatal fantasy and skullduggerous sorcery in one cursed tome of comic book enchantment!

Collects Cruel Kingdom #1-4.

Review Quotes

"It's safe to say at this point Oni Press' EC Comics label has been a huge success. The return of horror tales under the line as well as new fantasy anthology comic Cruel Kingdom have put it over the top. Problem is, with expectations now set at a certain point, can Cruel Kingdom keep us satisfied? In a word: yes... With another set of eerie and twisted fables, Cruel Kingdom continues to prove that Oni Press' EC Comics revival is firing on all cylinders. An exciting mix of brutal, clever, and visually striking fantasy horror, making it a must-read for fans of the genre."-- "AIPT"

About the Author

Corinna Bechko is a Hugo and Eisner Award-nominated New York Times bestselling author. Her work includes Invisible Republic, Star Wars: Legacy, Savage Hulk, Angel, Once Upon a Time, Court of the Dead, Green Lantern: Earth One, and The Expanse. Corinna lives in Los Angeles, where she works with dinosaurs and rescues parrots.

Matt Bors is an Eisner-winning comics editor and two time Pulitzer Prize finalist in cartooning. He is currently writing the upcoming Toxic Avenger comic book along with Justice Warriors, a dystopian satire created with artist Ben Clarkson from Ahoy Comics. In 2013, he founded The Nib, which published 6,000 comics, three books, and 15 issues of an award-winning print magazine. In 2017, he was the executive producer and head writer for two seasons of The Nib animation produced by Topic with Augenblick Studios. Bors's comics have appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, Village Voice, CNN, The Intercept, and were collected in the book We Should Improve Society Somewhat. He also drew the graphic novel War Is Boring, written by David Axe, and edits comics for In These Times magazine.

Christopher Cantwell is an American writer, producer, and director who has worked in television, film, and comic books. He is best known as one of the two co-creators of the TV series Halt and Catch Fire, for which he also served as a producer, showrunner, screenwriter, and director.

Cameron Chittock is a writer of comics and graphic novels such as the Mapmakers series, a two time ALA "Best Graphic Novels for Children Reading List" selection, and Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles x Stranger Things. When he's not scribbling down ideas, he can be found exploring New England with his family.

Chris Condon is the low-down dirty scoundrel behind the ongoing Image Comic series That Texas Blood and its acclaimed Wild West spinoff, The Enfield Gang Massacre, both with artist Jacob Phillips. He waded deep into bayou waters to adapt Barry Gifford's Night People for Oni Press and has not been the same since.

Al Ewing has been a Judge Dredd aficionado since the age of nine, and is best known in the UK for his work on Dredd in 2000 AD, where he also co-created Zombo and Damnation Station. In addition, Ewing has written various novels for Solaris and Abaddon Books, including The Fictional Man, Pax Omega and Gods of Manhattan, and has written Mighty Avengers and Loki: Agent of Asgard for Marvel Comics.

J. Holtham is an American screenwriter, best known for his work on TV shows such as Cloak and Dagger, Jessica Jones, and Supergirl. He recently broke into Marvel Comics with Bishop- War College, and is bringing back fan favorite nineties character, Night Thrasher, for his first solo series in 30 years.

Steve Niles is an American comic book author and novelist known for works such as Simon Dark, Mystery Society, and Batman: Gotham County Line. He is credited among other contemporary writers as bringing horror comics back to prominence, authoring such works as 30 Days of Night, its sequel, Dark Days (IDW Publishing), and Criminal Macabre (Dark Horse Comics) with frequent artist collaborator Ben Templesmith.

Greg Pak is a comic book writer and filmmaker best known for comic books such as Planet Hulk, Action Comics, and Mech Cadet Yu. He wrote the Code Monkey Save World graphic novel and The Princess Who Saved Herself children's book, based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton. Pak co-wrote the fan favorite Incredible Hercules series with Fred Van Lente, with whom he also wrote the new how-to book Make Comics Like the Pros. As a filmmaker, Pak directed the award-winning feature Robot Stories and dozens of shorts, including Happy Fun Room.

Ben H. Winters is the New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award-winning, and Philip K. Dick Award-winning author of Big Time, The Quiet Boy, Golden State, Underground Airlines, the Last Policeman trilogy, and the mash-up novel Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Winters has also worked extensively in television. He is the creator of the smash-hit CBS show Tracker and has served as a writer/producer on the FX cult hit Legion as well as Manhunt on Apple TV+. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, three kids, and one large dog.

Charlie Adlard found his first gig at the Judge Dredd Megazine in 1992 and hasn't looked back since. She lives in Shrewsbury, England.

Valeria Burzo is an Italian cartoonist and illustrator. In 2013, she obtained a two-year degree in Design and Applied Arts, Cinema and TV Scenography section at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. She has worked on several comic projects including collaborating with Luca Raimondo on the pencils of Il Cabalista di Praga published by Glenat, L'Ultimo Scugnizzo published by Marotta & Cafiero Editore, Le Indagini di Tom Bacardi published by Edizioni Inkiostro, Samuel Stern published by Bugs Comics, The Witches of World War II published by TKO Studios, Castle Full of Blackbirds published by Dark Horse, and The Hunt for the Skinwalker published by Boom Studios.

PJ Holden is a Belfast based comic artist best known for his work for Judge Dredd for 2000 AD. Over the past twenty years, PJ has built a reputation as a rock solid storyteller able to illustrate everything from grim dystopian futures, to over the top comedy adventures through war stories on land, sea, and air.

David Lapham began his career in the comic industry at the age of twenty working at Valiant Comics learning his craft illustrating and helping to create many original titles, including Shadowman, Harbinger and Rai. He left Valiant to work at Defiant Comics where he co-created Warriors Of Plasm with Jim Shooter. David turned his back on the superhero genre in 1995 to co-found the independent publishing company, El Capitan Books, which began publishing David's comic series Stray Bullets. Lapham has won Eisner Awards for his work on Stray Bullets and Murder Me Dead.

Leomacs is an Italian comic book artist based in Rome, Italy. In Italy, Leomacs has worked extensively for Sergio Bonelli Editore drawing Tex and Dylan Dog. For DC Comics, he has recently collaborated on Lucifer and the seven-part Hill House Comics thriller Basketful of Heads written by Joe Hill. He has drawn the French graphic novel The Invisible Mountain, written by Pierre Makyo and Frédéric Richaud, published by Delcourt. Leomacs and Riccardo La Bella collaborated on the graphic novel Apprendre à maîtriser son destin, Mémoire Vive written by Pierre Makyo for Glénat édition. Leomacs has collaborated as a storyboard artist with Colingwood & Co. for the animated series Horrid Henry. He has also realized storyboards and animated sequences for the film Nessuno mi troverá directed by Egidio Eronico.

Brian Level is a cartoonist, tattooer, and writer who has contributed premiere comic books like Star Wars, Batman, Spider-Man, Avengers, and Deadpool. His work has been internationally recognized for over 15 years and won a GLAAD Media Award for his contributions to Poison Ivy for DC Comics. Level brings an element of the horrific and the ecstatic to the projects he touches with the goal of creating timeless, deep, and rich work. He lives with his family in the greater Cincinnati area, where he makes stories and operates Illuminaut Tattoo.

John McCrea has been drawing comics for 30 years (his most famous work is Hitman for DC) and has worked on Wolverine, Deadpool, Spider-Man and The Hulk for Marvel, Batman, Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Superman for DC, Mythic for Image Comics, The Boys for Dynamite (now a tv show) and Judge Dredd for 2000 AD.

Andrea Mutti began drawing comics in his native Italy during the early 1990s collaborating with various European publishers on such series as DNAction (Xenia Edizioni), Lazarus Ledd and Nathan Never (both for Star Comics). In 2001, he landed in the U.S. market drawing acclaimed series such as The Executor and DMZ for DC/Vertigo, various Iron Man series for Marvel and G.I. Joe Origins for IDW, Top Cow, Image, Dark Horse, Vault, Humanoids, Dynamite, MadCave, The Lab, among many others.

Caitlin Yarsky is a comic book artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her first two series were Sean Lewis' Coyotes and Bliss at Image Comics. She was the main artist for Jeff Lemire's Black Hammer Reborn series at Dark Horse, drew a DC one-shot called Olympus: Rebirth with Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad, and has since drawn Catwoman and back-ups for Shazam (with variant covers from different publishers in between). She is currently working for DC and has started writing and drawing her own series.

Kano is the pseudonym of Spanish comic book artist Jose Ángel Cano López. Kano began his career at the age of 13, editing Spanish-language comics fanzines. At 15, he was already doing layouts and design work for Planeta-DeAgostini. Kano is a founding member of the Spanish magazine about comics, Krazy Comics, as well as the Phoenix Studio, which provided design, illustration, and publishing services and was eventually merged with Camaleón Ediciones, a publishing house that Kano worked for in his early days. He has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics. He worked on a long run of Action Comics, including the "Emperor Joker" storyline, as well as Gotham Central and Swamp Thing. He worked on Daredevil, Iron Fist, Man Thing, and Beta Ray Bill Godhunter for Marvel, as well as others.