One of my favorite books growing up in my youth was The Vampire Lestat. Unlike Interview with the Vampire, which leaned heavily into existential dread and gothic tragedy, the sequel was a little less philosophical but a lot more boisterous, as Lestat fully embraced who he was publicly. The seductive demeanor of a vampire rockstar fantasy drenched in ego and glam.

It was a book that exuded pure “I’m awesome” energy, but also delved into Lestat’s misunderstood origins, which the show has only lightly scratched the surface of thus far. To tell you how big a fan I am, I once visited the set of Interview With The Vampire Season 2 outside the Lalaurie Mansion. New Orleans itself blocks off parts of its historic buildings for filming, making the setting of the series feel as much a part of the actual town.

Then, at New York Comic Con in 2024, out of sheer casual conversation with strangers circumstance, I actually got to meet and swap stories with Mike Harkins, aka Father Matthias himself, the priest who gets murdered by Lestat in the pilot episode of the series. He shared a bit about what it was like on set filming during Covid-Era times. I’m pretty sure we’re friends on Facebook somewhere.

Anyways, what I loved about the book is that whereas Interview explored the loneliness and horrors of immortality, The Vampire Lestat felt like a rebellious response to it all: a punk-rock middle finger to tradition, quite befitting of a vampire born with all the powers and none of the instruction manuals.

An edgy yet romantic tale in a vampiric sorta way…

At New York Comic Con 2025, I was thrilled to sit in on a press conference talking about what to expect out of this season. New season debuts on June 7th on all AMC platforms, which is why, for the sake of timing it with the show… we waited until now to release this interview.

Fair warning, the audio transcription came in rough in places regarding questions from the press, so this is my attempt to research what my fellow journalists asked and try to capture the experience as best I can. However, I can say this is 100% the responses said from the cast/creators (The reason the audio was rough for the journalists questions is because this recording device was directly under Sam Reid himself).

Joining the panel were Jacob Anderson (Louis de Pointe du Lac), Sam Reid (Lestat de Lioncourt), Eric Bogosian (Daniel Molloy), and co-executive producer/writer Hannah Moscovitch and executive producer Mark Johnson.

Give it a read and feel free to share your thoughts down below.

Jacob (who plays Louis), any new icons or inspirations that shaped your portrayal of Louis?

JACOB: No specific ones. James Bond was one of his contemporary references. I still love to have Grace Jones in my head, and Eartha Kitt. They’re like two big Louis staples in my mind when i think about how he moves and how he looks at other people. I watched loads of Eartha Kitt interviews for season one, so I always go back to them.

This question is for Sam (who plays Lestat), Lestat wants to be loved very much for who and what he is. But does he even know what that is anymore?

SAM: What a great question... I think that if we had an answer… I don’t think we’d have a show. So, um, uh, does he know who and what he is?

That’s the journey.

To try and wake that up?

Eric (who plays Daniel), is any of that original energy of love between Armand and Daniel going to be retained for the adaptation?

ERIC: I feel that Armand’s love for Daniel is like when a kid has a stuffed animal and he drags it around with him for years until it has just one button for one eye.

He really loves that one stuffed animal…

So, it’s about as romantic as that can be.

Sam, for this season, regarding how Lestat is reclaiming the narrative, do you think it’s really about his love for Louis, his ego, or both?

SAM: It’s interesting. Reclaiming the narrative. Because he’s read the book (The Interview with The Vampire Book which also exists in the show) and the book is a real thing that exists in our world that’s come out.

I think, as a character in general, his love for Louie should just be taken as a given, but what that does is going to inform everything that he does anyway. It’s his ego that is the thing that he’s constantly grappling with.

I think I’ve said this once before, in the books, there’s a great chapter around the time he’s been rescued by Marius, and the first thing he says is… ‘Vanity’.

He’s always grappling with ego. The way Rolin and Hanna have kind of crafted him is, “What do you get when you put a Rockstar Vampire, who takes himself very seriously, in a position that is not taken very seriously, in the year 2025, when we’re dealing with everything shocking at any given moment?”

Like, aliens are real?

Cool. What else is going on? Know what I mean?

We’re watching the most devastating things on the news on a daily basis. What value is a supernatural being who dances around in leather pants?

His ego is super present. Reclaiming the narrative for his ego?

I don’t know… Maybe. Sorry (laughs).

Eric, what do you think being turned (into a vampire) so close to the end of his human life will do to Daniel?

ERIC: The thing to remember is, yes, to be turned later in life means you’re going to carry more of what you were into this other thing. Which is not human. You’re a vampire. You’re something else. It’s another dimension. But he is laden with all of this, and unfortunately, what Sam just said, a big part of this season is Daniel wrestling with the endless contradictions of being suddenly immortal.

I put in one little extra thing for me to play the character. For a man who spent his life being an investigative journalist and who thinks very logically, the world of vampires is not logical.

These guys don’t do logical things. So that really bends his mind, and it creates a lot of stress in this third season. It’s hard for him. And fun.

Hannah (Executive Producer), the series so far has been about the act of remembering. How is season 3 going to be a character shift, how memory affects Lestat, but also other characters?

HANNAH: In seasons one and two, we had Dubai, and we had a vampire who wanted to be interviewed and who wanted to understand which parts of the past he had forgotten, and we had a character who was an unreliable narrator and who didn’t remember anything or some things.

This season, we have none of that. So we don’t have an interviewer unless it’s Lestat interviewing himself. And then, Lestat remembers everything, but then there’s a question about what that memory does to him and how much that fucks him up.

If you’ve lived this life for 265 years and you’ve gone relentlessly forward, but there’s been all this horror in your life, and you’ve never examined it at all, suddenly you start to sing songs about yourself, all sorts of fucked up things are gonna happen.

And that’s what this season is about.

(Noticing Jacob’s outfit) So… any of you anime or manga fans?

JACOB: I really enjoyed CHAINSAW MAN and thought it was really fun. One Punch Man, I love. I just started MOB PSYCHO. It’s fun. And I also just started NEON GENESIS EVANGELION from the beginning. I’ve been watching that to help me go to sleep. It’s very dark but there’s something very about it that’s very meditative. And the horror!

Right. So… since this is a music-themed season. What’s on Lestat’s Playlist?

SAM: Uhh. Everything. Really, he’s kind of got the most eclectic taste that you can possibly imagine, which is quite confronting now. In terms of the character, he’s all over the place. He’s lived a couple of centuries and gone over everything.

Is there something you listen to to get in the mood for playing rock?

SAM: One thing I’ve always done, and continue to do, is I’ve found all these incredible bootleg videos of David Bowie’s Cracked Actor Tour. That somebody’s compiled into a singular video? The internet is so wild. On YouTube, you can just find this long-lost concert… that really inspired me.

I think I can look back at that, although Lestat moves differently than David Bowie, but just that sense of showmanship and magic is something I look back to. But Daniel Hart presented, and continued to, and is continuing to while we have two weeks left of filming, just the most extraordinary collection of songs that I have been going over and over in my head for close to six months now. I try not to divert too much.

Question. What’s happening in season 3 with Louis given the book didn’t have any character source material?

JACOB: It’s difficult to talk about Louis’ journey in season 3 because it’s the invention of Rolin Jones and Hannah’s story.

HANNAH: We were trying to think about Louis’ journey this season. Let’s say your daughter dies, and you put a yellow dress up on the wall to honor her. That’s not actually gonna fix it. How long will that really work? You can say you wanna own the night all you like, but that’s going to come in waves. Like, that’s going to come in and out. So I think that’s in some ways what we did with Louis this season, that’s great that he has that yellow dress up there, but his daughter’s dead and his relationship of 77 years ended, so he’s gotta figure out a whole pile of shit now.

Sam, while you were getting into the headspace of Lestat, was there a song that helped you get into that headspace of that part of that life?

SAM: It’ll be clearer once the show comes out, but in terms of musical influences, I’ve been barraged with music in a way that I never really fathomed when I got the role 4 years ago. I’m not looking. I’m processing.

Like I’ve got it up there, it’s articulated like Louis, a lot of presence in al ot of the song.

JACOB: You gotta just listen to the podcast and audiobook.

HANNAH: Daniel Hart and Rolin Jones inundate you with music.

SAM: Don’t take this the wrong way. But Lestat is an artist as a character, so he does convey a lot of what he’s feeling through his music. It’s a whole, 3 to 5-minute song. Multiple times per episode. So I’m not looking for inspiration, I’m learning my lines.

Daniel and I do talk a lot about what we’re going to sound like and reference from… but all the members of the band are real musicians. All of the sound technicians are live mixing the sound and then do post. There’s a huge element of the show where you’re working with real musicians.

There’s an inherent ego you need, not like an actor when I’m playing a character, but when musicians do perform, they play themselves. They play their persona. They rip open their soul and be like, “This is who I am!”

Lestat has a persona, but to be a real musician, he has to continue to pull it back.

It’s been a process of really dealing with the material and trying to find as much truth in the material as possible. Rather than be… “I’m gonna be glam rock!”

We start there, but we gotta go somewhere.

Finally, Hannah, what can you tell us about Gabrielle and how she impacts the story of Lestat’s journey?

HANNAH: I’d say she’s central to this season. And I think we thought a lot about her ahead of time. We thought a lot about what it would be like to be her as a human. To be married off from Italy to France at 15. To be married to a really gross man, and whatever happened in that bedroom was bad. Then to have a bunch of children who died, two who lived, which were 3D copies that were like her husband.

It’s a cage.

But then, Lestat is born, and he’s like her. And Lestat is a dreamer and a hunter and restless and inquisitive and intelligent. It’s about what it means to get close to her son and how complicated that can be.

The Vampire Lestat Premieres on June 7th on AMC and AMC+

May the Fourth be with you!

We normally cover horror here at The DeMonster, but today we’re covering the closure of one of the longest-running Sci-Fi magazines, as the legendary run for Star Wars Insider comes to an end with its 237th issue.

The magazine has been a staple for the Star Wars community for years, rife with celebrity and creative interviews, covering everything Star Wars related from its movies, TV shows, and video games.

We’d never thought it would end, but the magazine is sadly bidding an Alderaan adieu as of today, with its final issue available in stores right now in the US and Canada.

Fun facts about Star Wars Insider. It originally was a newsletter called Bantha Tracks in 1978, before changing into a magazine called The Lucas Film Fan Club in ‘87. The title then changed again, re-releasing as STAR WARS INSIDER to coincide with the release of the video game Star Wars: TIE Fighter in 1994–widely considered a space shooter classic in retrospect–and was actually one of the first computer video games I’d ever played as a kid.

I’ve had friends like Mary Fan published in Star Wars Insider. At some point, I was hoping to pitch them too. A few years ago, I was the SEO content manager and an admin at CultureSlate, home to the incredibly popular Star Wars Underworld Podcast, where Star Wars influencer Hannah Raeside got her start covering Star Wars fandom.

We all loved the magazine. Like so many, I’ve had fond memories of Star Wars, and it too.

This final issue of Insider (No. 237) features an interview with Kathleen Kennedy reflecting on her tenure as president of Lucasfilm in a look back at how things got done and how the franchise evolved over time. More recently, the magazine gets into some highlights of the upcoming movie Star Wars: Starfighter.

If that wasn’t enough, there are also insights from editor John Gilroy in an interview about his work on Rogue One and Andor that offers a glimpse into the art of storytelling in the cutting room. A lot of special guests contributed to this one, from former contributors, authors, and creatives, talking about how much the magazine has meant to them over the years, with even a comment by actors like Mark Hamill himself.

Finally, if you’re a fan of The Mandalorian, the final issue also has a featured preview of The Mandalorian and Grogu, ahead of its theatrical release.

There’s a lot more in this final issue, including a highlights showcase of some behind-the-scenes perspectives from special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy and a look at the 30th anniversary of Shadows of the Empire.

Honestly, I can’t stress how important this magazine was in pop culture. It will be deeply missed. Buy it if you’d like to say farewell to a classic piece of media history, and if you’re a collector, yeah–this is one of those must-own collectibles in the future.

STAR WARS INSIDER #237

THE FORCE-FILLED FINAL ISSUE!

ON SALE US, CANADA: May 5, 2026 / ON SALE UK: June 4, 2026

Cut The Roses is the kind of comic book that dares you to keep reading. As equal parts horrifying as it is beautiful, this first issue is a disturbingly good kickoff to an erotic horror story created in homage to comic books such as Luana Vecchio’s Lovesick. Which mixes murder and sex from the get-go.

Written by Oscar Osorio with art by EL KRP and covers by Narcelio Sousa, Ivan Angulo, and Luana Vecchio herself, this book is a horror story about a beautiful woman slasher and the mystery that follows. The first entry of a series about a universe full of serial killers.

Here’s the premise:

Cut the Roses follows Billy, a teenager who one night witnesses his parents being murdered in a ritualistic way by a mysterious woman he calls The Hell Muse. Beautiful, composed, and horrifyingly precise.

Twenty years later, William lives a hollow life until news emerges of a new survivor: a young woman named Dasha, whose parents were killed in a disturbingly similar way. William tries to find her with help from an unexpected ally: a prostitute he has been seeing named Stephanie. Together, they will decide whether Dasha is the key to solving this mystery or if some dark truths are meant to stay hidden.

We sat with Ringo-nominated writer Oscar Osorio to learn more.

This article was edited for clarity

Oscar, we’ve known each other for a while, coming up as students from Scott Snyder’s Substack. I’ve always supported your work. But this one? This is grotesque! Next-level intense. It’s… incredible.

I gotta ask… are you okay?

OSCAR OSORIO: Haha, I appreciate your support, my friend! I’m as okay as someone trying to make art for a living could be in this world.

Your writing tends to orbit things that scare you. The Childless tapped into societal anxiety about declining birth rates; Cut the Roses feels like it’s digging into something even more uncomfortable.

What is this comic really about?

OSCAR OSORIO: Cut The Roses, and the subsequent serial killer universe I’m building, will explore human feelings that make us uncomfortable, particularly within loving relationships and sex.

This is not a high concept or a dystopian society made by the decisions of a few, but rather a personal story about those “taboos” that we’re afraid to discuss with others, and sometimes with ourselves, that ultimately make us who we are. Those desires we feel but are told not to explore because of societal norms.

Trauma exploration, fetishes, behaviors, I want to explore this to communicate that we shouldn’t hide who we are, because, as broken as we could be, that’s what makes us human.

This feeling stems from a world more and more dominated by AI, which is taking everything down the same path: a world where we’re all deemed “equal”, dictated by those in power.

I think it’s important to highlight that we are all different, and that each person’s uniqueness is what makes humanity beautiful. I know this feels like a stretch from a slasher book, but if you come with me for the ride, you’ll see it for yourself.

This universe is for people outside the norms: people who are minorities, neurodivergent, queer, and more. It’s all about us being unique in a system that wants us all to be the same.

Now, this book goes really far. There’s a line in most mediums, but comics feel like they can cross it safely because of the abstraction.

Where do you think that line is, if it even exists at all?

OSCAR OSORIO: I think that depends on the book. Each story has lines that it traces, and for each story, you can determine how far the creators may go. As you say, this one goes far, but I believe it serves a purpose. It’s not “free”; it’s needed. If I don’t go far enough, I’m not taking the story where it needs to go, and that’s detrimental to the book and the readers.

I put the Mature label for a reason, and there’s a reason why I’m Kickstarting this book instead of trying to get it published. But at the same time, I believe we need these. Creative freedom, when not hurting anyone, is something we can’t lose.

To add, I once asked Ryan Stegman a similar question: what can I do in comics, and what are the limits? And his answer was short but precise: “as long as it’s good…”

CUT THE ROSES PREVIEW PAGES 1-4

Let’s talk protagonists. William feels broken, having survived psychosexual trauma: his parents, killed in a sex-murder.

How does this traumatic event drive who he is?

OSCAR OSORIO: William is a victim, and not only does he lose his parents at a young age, but he’s also mistreated by a patriarchal society that either doesn’t believe him about the killer or shames him for not being able to defend his parents against a woman.

Society’s influence on William resembles our society. He grows up overcoming this trauma the best he can, but we quickly see he’s scared for life.

His biggest scar is his obsession with the Hell Muse. Even though he did his best to turn his life around, he can’t stop seeing her. Everything goes back to the tragedy, with reason.

Now, William has the rare chance of getting answers, and maybe revenge? But is that what he really wants? We’ll see.

The Hell Muse is… a lot. Equally tantalizing as she is terrifying. What is she? An entity, metaphor, or something in-between?

OSCAR OSORIO: We’ll delve deeper into the Hell Muse’s origins as the series unfolds, but something in-between best describes her at this stage.

The Hell Muse came to life as I was wondering: why are all the slasher killers from my youth monstrous men? How would society react if a serial killer were a beautiful woman? Probably the authorities wouldn’t believe it, and everyone would underestimate her. So, to an extent, she’s a manifestation of society’s flaws, the same as William.

They are outliers, flaws, what happens when people derail. At least from an external perspective, but I want to explore both of them, and more characters, because that’s where real humanity lies. Behind the masks and appearances.

The Hell Muse is not just a symbol; she’s a complex character with her own problems and concerns. I’m very excited to continue telling her story.

Cut The Roses is an original Erotic-slasher-horror universe. You’ve officially hit every indie comic book trend, my friend.

Was that intentional, or did it just come out that way?

OSCAR OSORIO: Cut the Roses started as a self-contained story, but as I was writing it, I had too much fun with the characters and the world. Then I started thinking: The Hell Muse is my Freddy Krueger in a way, so I started wondering: where’s Jason? Where’s Michael Myers? How does the existence of multiple serial killers work in this world? What is this world, exactly? Why are the serial killers all women?

So many questions, and, as a storyteller, I had to craft all the answers. It has been a dream of mine to craft a universe of interconnected stories, and I’m glad it happened naturally. It wasn’t planned, I wasn’t trying to tick the indie comic box trends, and the fact that it happened out of nowhere is what keeps me going. I don’t want to tell these stories. I need to.

What kind of visual were you chasing for this book? I immediately thought of Lovesick when reading, then saw you actually got its creator, Luanna Vecchio, for a cover.

OSCAR OSORIO: For Cut the Roses, I wanted to transmit a mix of passion and gore. The antithesis of what’s beautiful and what’s monstrous, how sometimes these lines intertwine, and what it says about us.

The red tones characterize the Hell Muse and give this book a sense of urgency, while the black-and-white sections serve as interludes. Color has been used very strategically and will continue to be so for the rest of the books.

Also, this book doesn’t exist without Lovesick, and I’ve told Luana this, as I’ve been a fan of her work ever since it came out.

It’s a visceral book. Obviously, I love Luanna’s work–I sell lovesick in my own store and am currently working with her sister. That family of artists is fantastic.

That said, talk to me about the artist, EL KRP. What did they bring to the book that elevated it beyond what you had on the page?

OSCAR OSORIO: El KRP is a young Chilean artist who’s very talented, has great projection, and understands what I need from him in the book. His incorporation into the project came after a previous artist couldn’t continue, so we didn’t get the chance to create it from scratch together, as I normally like to work in this type of partnership. Fortunately, he’s a fan of slashers and erotica and has shown he’s up for the challenge. Now that I’m continuing to build the universe, we’ll keep working on this.

For this story, the key is that El KRP has a great grasp of expressions, which is absolutely crucial for conveying what the characters are feeling, since this book is all about that. You will see it in William and in the Hell Muse; their expressions are what make this book.

I love how the look opens like traditional manga before it spirals and, honestly, bleeds into something else. How involved were you in the layout and pacing? What does your collaboration process look like?

OSCAR OSORIO: The circumstances around this book were not traditional, and I think it’s a testament to how indie comics sometimes work. Basically, when we first did it, back in July 2025, I wanted to sell it at an event in Peru, but we were at an impasse with the previous artist, so we finished the whole book in a month, and I printed it in Spanish.

This wasn’t the best collaborative effort, and even if the result was good, the rush left some pages and the storytelling less than ideal. So, starting this year, we got back together to make a better, more consistent book. This was a tedious, inefficient process, but it worked wonders for my chemistry with El KRP, as we really understood each other.

It’s true that in times of crises, you can see who steps up, and El KRP definitely did. Now, the collaboration is less one-sided, and I feel we’re creating a story we’re both proud of.

Without giving too much away, can you tell us what to expect? Maybe A hint at what’s to… come?

OSCAR OSORIO: I can tell you that Cut the Roses continues in a way that no one would expect, as you can see from those final pages. There are many underlying mysteries, some of which will continue in subsequent series with other characters, though the idea is that every story in this universe can be read independently.

Cut the Roses gets weird: we’re going back in time, there will be more action, gore, and sex. In general, it will not be for the faint of heart, and it will definitely be entertaining as hell. Cut the Roses is all scripted, and artwork for issue 2 is already underway.

And I can tell you I’m already working on the following two series in this universe.

We have Iron Man, we have Cap, and we have the Hulk. And I’m already thinking about the Avengers. If everything goes well, I’ll be working on these characters for the next five years. It’s going to be a fun one.

Cut The Roses has just launched on Kickstarter.

You can support it by clicking this link right here

We cover a lot of weird, brilliant, and messed-up stuff at The DeMonster, but every so often, someone I actually know drops a book that hits in a completely different way. That’s the case with Memories of Giselle, the debut graphic novel by my friend Katia Vecchio, available in stores on June 17th.

A coming-of-age story about a young woman piecing together her life after a childhood shaped by trauma, this is a slice-of-life story carried by art that’s equal parts tender and, as it is, quietly grim.

It's like a depiction of a forgotten memory, with artwork that is strikingly beautiful and colors that feel like Ghibli meets Richard Linklater films, in that they’re equal parts vibrant and surprisingly cinematic. I also really liked the use of shading and negative space to build atmosphere in this one, with rooms themselves heavily defining emotional tone.

Now, for context, Katia and I met because she’s actually the artist on BEAUTIFUL, my comic book spinoff story about Brandi the Succubus and sequel to The Tomb of Baalberith. I’ve seen how Katia creates art using emotional beats, body language, and those tiny facial expressions that say everything without uttering a word.

Watching her channel that same precision into something this personal of a graphic novel that’s been long in the making is wild to me, and obviously, I wouldn’t have hired her if I didn’t think she is going to be a big voice to come for this next generation.

Similarly, for readers who don’t know: comics run in the Vecchio family. Katia’s sister is Luana Vecchio, creator and artist of the cult-hit horror series Lovesick. About a decade ago, the two of them even teamed up on a Webtoon Canvas comic called Purple, which landed a spot in the Superhero Comics Contest hosted by Stan Lee and POW! Entertainment.

Below is an exclusive conversation with Katia and I about how Memories of Giselle came together, what it means to draw trauma, and how you survive making your first full graphic novel and come out the other side. We talk process, vulnerability, why comics are uniquely equipped for this kind of emotional storytelling, and yeah—what it’s like putting something this intimate into a medium that traditionally loves Big Two superhero theatrics.

So, with that said, here’s our exclusive interview with Katia Vecchio.

Edited for Clarity

Hi Katia, thanks for doing this! Besides our book that I’m super excited about, I’ve been a big fan of your art style since finding your Final Fantasy 8 fan art piece online (It’s my favorite video game!). Now, I notice that you and your sister use somewhat similar art techniques, but I do think both of you have distinctly different art styles. Tell us about how you developed your art style over the years?

KATIA VECCHIO: Hey Christian, thank you for the interview! Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game too!

I think growing up together naturally led my sister and me to share some techniques, but over time our influences and interests shaped our styles in different ways!

I’ve loved drawing ever since I was a child because I was really into cartoons and anime—I was fascinated by animation. When my sister and I were kids, we used to come up with our own comic stories, drawing our characters on paper and then reading their lines out loud (we didn’t even know what balloons were yet!).

As for my art style, I’ve always been influenced by what I see and what I read. Over time, I’ve read a lot of European, American, and Japanese comics, and I’ve always paid close attention to the artists whose line work I admired the most, letting their work influence me—especially manga artists.

Now, you’ve described Memories of Giselle as a story that deals with memory and trauma. Tell us more about it. What is it exactly?

KATIA VECCHIO: It’s a story about adolescence and family relationships, but above all, it’s a story about growing up and the emotional weight of trauma that a person carries throughout their life. I wanted to explore how certain experiences can remain silent and almost invisible during childhood, only to resurface later in life in ways we don’t understand.

The book is about this transition: the moment when growing up means confronting what has remained unspoken and learning to face it, rather than letting it define you.

Talk to me about the art? What was it like to draw this, as I’m a huge fan of your color work, but also the sentimentality I find in your style. It’s soothing. And sweet. And… sad. Your art makes me feel a lot of things I don’t normally. I hope others feel this way too.

KATIA VECCHIO: I’m really happy that my art can evoke emotions—it’s always my goal. It means a lot to me that you felt that way.

Choosing the right colors based on the feelings I want to convey in each moment is very important. I love using light blue tones because I feel they give a more emotional atmosphere to a scene.

The most challenging part, though, was drawing the characters as they grow—changing their proportions without losing their visual identity and keeping their distinctive features. Since it’s a coming-of-age story, it was important to clearly show the passage of time without confusing the reader.

I think there’s something beautifully honest in every piece I’ve seen you create. Like an innocence lost to harsh reality. Do you use mood boards or color scripts? Is this style that you use just instinctive? In fact, did you have artistic influences that inspired you for this?

KATIA VECCHIO: Thank you so much! I usually create folders where I collect photos and images I like, letting myself be inspired by certain details and then building the final image in my own way.

For the backgrounds, I drew inspiration from European landscapes or from photographs I’ve taken myself; for example, Giselle’s home in the countryside was inspired by my parents’ old house.

As for color, I’m heavily influenced by Studio Ghibli (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve flipped through their artbooks!), and by anime color palettes in general.

I love the art and colors of Jordi Lafebre, the dramatic and poignant framing of Inio Asano, and the expressiveness and humanity in the characters of Naoki Urasawa. They’ve all been a huge source of inspiration for me.

Is this book considered a memoir? How do you balance the need to depict the personal experience of your story versus the need to drive the narrative forward?

KATIA VECCHIO: Some scenes in the book are inspired by real events, but I wouldn’t consider it a memoir. I’ve always loved slice-of-life and dramatic comics, so when I started writing the story, I immediately knew I wanted to draw from personal experiences to develop it and bring as much humanity into it as possible.

For me, it’s important to bring a sense of humanity into the story, and drawing from something personal—whether it’s a feeling, a memory, or an observation—helps me connect more deeply with what I’m creating, and makes the emotions and feelings I want to convey feel more authentic.

Is this your rawest work to date? Did you need to set boundaries or just sit in the dark stuff for the work to feel real?

KATIA VECCHIO: To be honest, the desire to tell this story was stronger than any hesitation or fear. As I kept writing and adding new elements, I found myself increasingly eager to move on to drawing the pages.

I’m aware that the book deals with very sensitive themes, but for me it was important to approach them with care and honesty, rather than holding back. What mattered most was staying true to the emotional core of the story.

Finally, who are you speaking to with this book? Is it for people who’ve been through similar experiences, or are you creating empathy for readers who maybe haven’t?

KATIA VECCHIO: I’d like this book to be for everyone. But especially for those who feel lost or still feel anchored to the past. I wanted to offer them a sense of hope, even if only for a moment—something that might stay with them after reading.

Bonus Question. You excited to work with me? Beautiful is… so silly compared to this book. I can’t believe we’re working together.

KATIA VECCHIO: I’m incredibly excited! And I’m having so much fun drawing all the action scenes (you already know that!).

Thank you for giving me this opportunity—not just for the interview, but also to work together on Beautiful… and for letting me draw all these badass female characters. But I won’t say anything more! 🤫

Memories of Giselle is going to be published by Image Comics. It’s on Final Order Cutoff on May 11th, 2026, so ask your Local Comic Book Store to order your copies now. The book will be available in Comic Stores everywhere starting June 17th, 2026.

Without a doubt in my mind, Invincible just hit the next level of its story. Everything feels like it’s both grown and changed, and there are some major reveals in this finale. Suffice it to say, it’s all just incredible, must-see TV.

Honestly, seeing what happens after the war feels reminiscent of old World War II films. Moments where victory is achieved, and the battles feel over, but the cost is only beginning to surface. Take then, for instance, The Lord of the Rings, another traditional fantasy epic inspired by post-war stories.

There’s a moment that never makes it into The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, when the Hobbits return home to the Shire—only to find it overtaken and unrecognizable, now corrupted under Saruman’s rule.

See… metaphorically speaking, though in this case also quite literally, whether or not they knew it or not, the war followed them home. And that sort of energy and consequence? That’s what this episode is getting at.

This is the return home moment of the Hero’s Journey. One where the hero gets back to where they started and has to live with what they’ve become and how they’ve changed. Reveals are big, but what matters more is the fallout. Everyone is different in the months that followed… especially Mark Grayson.

Mark is deep in PTSD. I know, because, well, I’ve been there. Having worked in careers where my own safety was on the line. I think the show did a great job showcasing Mark stuck in survival mode, constantly expecting the worst-case scenario, and the brutal ways that the people around him would die.

It’s intense and uncomfortable, and the show lets the audience stay in that discomfort, playing with that fear for the point of a payoff; Thragg’s imposing strength hanging over Mark like something that can’t be beaten.

It’s strange… Thragg could have ended the entire war in the blink of an eye, yet chose not to. That high-threat level pretty much haunts Mark. Especially after earlier in the season, Mark questioned everything and was being pushed through war. Making hard choices while the guilt bothered him.

Killing for the greater good, and the difficulties of making that choice.

Now, that struggle all makes sense. The point wasn’t the war itself, nor was it killing people for the greater good… It was really what those choices would do to him after. He made the hard calls. Yes, Mark killed. He also helped destroy Viltrum. Now Mark has to sit with it.

That weight is catching up in this episode, and Mark’s slipping as he starts to realize he finally has something big to lose. That fear takes over. Living with all that death guilt and the expectation that at some point, death will come for him as recompense as well, and feeling that at all times wears him down. He falls back on the same reasoning that he didn’t have a choice…

And maybe he didn’t. Omni-Man and Thaedus pushed things forward. Mark had to intervene or else suffer what worse may come out of war. Yet, despite all that, Mark still carries that guilt, even after the destruction on a massive scale. That ability to feel bad with it is what keeps him human.

The episode frames the coalition victory as one in name only. They made it out alive, yes, but that’s only really because the Viltrumites let them go, more like a warning than a mercy.

The Earth is exposed, and as Cecil Stedman puts it, the remaining 37 Viltrumites are basically “super-Nazis,” built on domination and strength above all else… sort of like what I talked about last week.

So, with Thaedus gone, Allen the Alien steps into leadership. He has the power and the empathy, but strategy isn’t his strength, and that shows. It leaves things feeling unstable going forward, even with Mark’s allies in hand… which, again, leads to a shocking stinger I’ll let you see for yourself.

There’s also some very good developments in the Debbie and Nolan department that I’d love to get into, but again… spoilers. Embargoes. Etc.

Anyway, what stands out is how focused this episode is on the aftermath. The season stayed locked into the Viltrumite War, but what we see in this one is the aftermath of where we left off just months later.

Because that’s the reality. Life will always keep moving while everything is falling apart. It doesn’t slow down for anyone. And Mark finally understands the cost of what he’s done, not just physically, but mentally.

Like in actual war, no one really wins out in the end. We only make it through.

Invincible feels like it’s entering its next phase. This writing of this arc had real stakes, real consequences, and real damage that sticks. The animation is really leveling it up for this final episode and right now, this stands as the best superhero ensemble on television. With maybe The Boys as its only real competition.

I think just about everyone should be watching this show right now.

All episodes of Invincible Season 4 are available to watch on Prime Video streaming right now.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one. A group of well put-together monster-hunting experts walks into a bar, each with their mysterious baggage about the past. Armed with wit, overconfidence, and just enough moxie to convince us that their ironbound stubbornness was, in actuality, sheer determination all along… they find the local threat, kick its ass, and move on.

Spectors is not that kind of story.

This is a comic book series less like The Witcher and more like James Gunn’s rendition of Creature Commandos; dysfunctional heroes doing their best to stop evil in what ends up being a fun-filled lesson on sloppily getting it done.

Created by the award-winning team of Shannon Eric Denton and David Hartman, SPECTORS is a can’t-miss story that jumps between the 1930s and the modern day. It’s a tale about legacy, along with a trio of oddballs: a supernatural investigator, a hand-for-a-sorta-gun specialist, and a general oddball monstrosity. All three who band together to stop a cult from resurrecting ancient evils.

We spoke with comic creator Shannon Eric Denton to learn more.

I went into Spectors not knowing what to expect and came out really into it. For those unfamiliar, where did the idea for the book start from?

SHANNON: When I started my production company Monster Forge I wanted to embrace and make the kinds of projects I love and while I wanted to make sure each project had its own unique voice, I didn’t want to shy away from similar projects specifically because, as a fan myself, I know it’s not like I’ll swear off werewolf movies because I’d already seen one. I’m gonna go see all the werewolf movies! Spectors is certainly not the first monster-hunters comic I’ve done and will definitely not be the last. So that’s where it started. A desire to introduce a new trio of monster hunters as we build out the Monster Forge universe.

I know there’s a lot of the old Hammer Films in here, Ditko Dr. Strange, Karloff Frankenstein, and occult mysticism all mixed in with the many pulp characters I grew up with. It’s also my belief that making comics is a team sport and I really wanted to lean into the strengths of my teammate on this book, artist David Hartman, and let his visuals influence me as much as my script guided him. It was a pretty seamless ride making this book!

There’s a lot of monster-hunting and paranormal-fighting comics in stores right now, but Spectors feels unique. What makes this different than the usual paranormal team?

SHANNON: First, thank you! That’s great to hear. I think a big part of it is that as I age and become a more experienced writer, I’m more comfortable letting my weirdness and goofball sense of black humor creep into my work. Despite having never fought monsters or cast a spell, there’s a lot of me and the people in my life and my views of people in power (and how they most often let us down) in this book.

You’re working with David Hartman on this, whose work I absolutely loved in adapting the popular Filipino comic to Netflix adaptation: Trese. I can’t think of anyone better to do spector-hunting, but in your thoughts, what does he bring to Spectors that elevates it beyond what you originally had in mind?

SHANNON: I think almost every comics writer will tell you they’d rather have a storyteller artist enhancing their work than some artist who draws a pretty picture at the expense of the story. David is a master storyteller. Working with him in TV and now comics, he knows what needs to be in the background five pages earlier to make sure the payoff actually pays off! He’s also someone who loves drawing monsters as much as I love writing them!

The team itself is wild. A doctor with a mystical dagger, a girl with a prosthetic gun arm, a straight-up powerhouse of a sort of reanimated monster/mummy kid. Why was it important for you to build a crew of oddballs instead of traditional heroes?

SHANNON: I won’t speak for you, but I think most people are oddballs. We’re all broken in different ways and in different periods of our lives. Most everyone relates to that even if we don’t want to.

To be honest, I believe many of the ones who don’t are largely without empathy for others and that makes them the biggest monster of all…they’re also often the one who thinks they’re the hero.

This is an exploration of that and how the right people around you can help you heal and the wrong people are always there to take advantage…plus our book has cool wraiths, monsters, and occultists!

Debby especially stands out immediately. The gun arm reminds me of Barrett from Final Fantasy 7. When you’re designing characters like her, what comes first—the look, the power set, or the personality?

SHANNON: I gave David a basic guide of what I wanted for Debby…strong Filipina fighter, broken in body but not spirit etc etc so we had a good idea of the kind of strong young lady she was and what she’d overcome and he came back with that gatling gun arm and asked “is this too much?” I was like “let’s make her gatling gun arm fire all kinds of stuff like she’s our Hawkeye/GreenArrow” and from there we were off and running!

There’s a deeper mythology running under all this chaos, especially with Stashwick family both Nigel and Reginald. Can you share more about the mask, the dagger, and the family history?

SHANNON: Without giving too much away, there’s a lot of legacy for Reg to deal with. He’s proud of it but it’s also a curse. Again, I hope everyone has a healthy, stable family life but as is often the case, that’s not most people’s story. He’s from a line of folks that have been in the fight and whether he wanted to inherit the family business, he did and he’s trying to navigate it in his own way…and help others not suffer in the ways he has. So that’s the most important bit…Reg working towards forgiveness from himself for his mistakes.

That’s a big part of him mentoring Debby and then bringing Ollie onto the team. The secondary is the fun in crafting how the worldbuilding works (we have a cool fact file at the back of the book explaining the dagger’s abilities to cut through the wraiths and how Reg wearing the mask keeps the dagger from driving him insane). We’re tying parts of it to our other Monster Forge books like KRAKEN and having a blast building out this world.

How much of Spectors is about fighting monsters versus inheriting the responsibilities of taking care of something you maybe didn’t ask for?

SHANNON: I tried to weave these two together because the non-stop action and suspense stem from taking care of problems/challenges you didn’t ask for…which is daily life for almost every living thing on this planet.

The creatures in this are genuinely unsettling, but the action is also just straight-up fun to watch unfold. How do you balance horror and spectacle without losing the tension?

SHANNON: David and I have made careers out of directing action sequences, so we’re both keenly aware that even the best choreography isn’t as powerful as actually caring about and rooting for your character. We’re both heavily influenced by Sam Raimi…he can terrify you and make you laugh within the same minute because he knows how to emotionally invest you first.

Horror thrives on uncertainty and restraint, while spectacle leans toward scale and revelation, so the challenge is in managing that push and pull. For us, that meant preserving tension in the quiet moments and not losing it once the spectacle kicks in…by staying grounded in the character’s perspective and never fully giving the audience all the information at once.

If someone picks up Spectors thinking it’s just another ghost-hunting comic, what’s the moment where you think they realize, “Oh, this is something else”?

SHANNON: I think the sorority sacrifice scene is probably that point…or the cover when you see our cast. I’m just excited you alluded that this may be ‘something else’.

We really poured a lot of ‘making this a book for ourselves’ into it, hoping we’d attract some other fellow monster, horror and dark humor-loving goofballs!

Any other words you’d like to say about the series?

SHANNON: Yes! We’re very proud of SPECTORS and hoping everyone loves it as much as we do! We want to keep telling the stories of Reginald, Debby and Ollie for years to come, so please tell your friends (and local comic shop) about it! Thank you!

SPECTORS is available in stores wherever comics are sold on May 26th.

A gift courtesy of AHOY Comics and friends! Now available in stores today as a full TPB, you can check out the first issue of ANCESTRAL RECALL below absolutely for free.

A tale drawn by two members of DC Entertainment’s Milestone Initiative: writer Jordan Clark (Aquaman, Star Wars Adventures) and artist Atagun Ilhan (Poison Ivy, The Shadow Cabinet), this is a comic book series that turns black history into a superpower, blending some of the most important black figures in culture, to help save a painter’s wife from an evil corporation.

Writer Steve Orlando loved it, describing it as “SINNERS meets QUANTUM LEAP.” which I tend to agree. But you can decide for yourself by reading the free preview of issue one below!

In Stores Now

April 15, 2026

$17.99 / $24.99 CAN

This is an episode that focuses on the story of two people: Thaddeus, the leader of the rebels and the leader of the Coalition of Planets, and then Invincible’s big bad: Thragg.

It’s the culmination of a clash of events between rebellion and empire, freedom versus control, and ideology and reality. And the stakes and weight of what happens here are huge.

Last week, the coalition homeworld of Talescria was attacked. This week, is the counterassault led by the coalition against the Viltrum Empire. Without giving away too much, this is the big display of power we’ve been waiting for all season.

Yet, when we started, Mark was terrified of becoming his father. He was losing control and killing people to make things easier. That tension drove everything in the first few episodes up until we entered war, which has been rife with Mark and friends making these hard decisions time and again.

Which leaves Episode 7 in a strange place...

Because the material understands its themes: the failure of fascism, the fragility of power, and the inevitability of an absolute empire’s collapse. But understanding something and making us feel it are two very different things. Invincible has been all about the latter. But understanding the cost of war… that’s what this episode is about.

However, embargoes are strict for this one to REAAAAALLLLYY not spoil the big things to come. So instead… I’m going to tell it to you, metaphorically speaking, with a schooly lecture about… why Fascism is bad.

Fascism is Bad and Invincible Understands how to Depict it

The war machine of fascism is so institutionalized to sell you a great lie: that strength is everything; the strong rule, and the weak, and the vulnerable, and the needy? They deserve to fail, be blamed, or even, be subjugated.

But when Adolf Hitler saw his empire crumble… he began to realize the error of his ways, that ultimately, might was not right, and that despite being so close to victory… Hitler lost. Like the loser that he always was…

He chose to end his life as a coward. The day he died. The day THAT happened, when this, hypocritical, noisy warmongering piece of shit who wouldn’t stop running his mouth, whose bloodline today, has gone so far in the shame direction as to choose to end their own bloodline intentionally–that NO DESCENDENTS of Adolph Hitler are ever to exist...

When that day comes for neo-fascists. I hope we remember.

That is what this episode of Invincible is all about.

The Viltrumites depicted here are a commentary on fascism.

• They’re run by the military.

• Practice Eugenics.

• Are led by those deemed the strongest.

And even though Thragg is the strongest Viltrumite in the series, complaints online have been that he hasn’t been intimidating enough.

There has been no “holy shit” arrival moment like Conquest, nor any defining moment of horror, granting silent moments of shock. For someone built up as the apex predator of the Viltrum Empire, he still feels… somewhat theoretical.

Until now. Which is kind of the point.

Thragg was bred for war. The purest expression of Viltrumite ideology. He’s the Superman amongst Supermen, which is why he’s been off the playing field.

Strangely, Thragg’s voice actor, Lee Pace, was also the voice for Ronan the Accuser himself in the MCU, so I’m not fully buying into the controversy lately of him not being intimidating enough. But what I think people mix up is the idea that a Superman needs to act super. When in reality…

Supermen are rarely people who act. They’re more propaganda machines & symbols of a movement.

The basis of the Viltrumites is obviously the Kryptonians from DC, based on creators Siegel and Shuster’s early childhood influences, which were a major basis for Superman. For those who don’t know, these inspirations are rooted in the Jewish stories of Moses: a man sent away as an infant to become a savior for his people, but also in the story of the Golem: a super-strong, virtually indestructible creature serving as defender of the oppressed.

Thus, let’s look at the popular concept of Superman. The Übermensch, based on ideas taken from the French philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The philosopher has been quoted in a lot of fiction over the past twenty or so years, and was most famous for popularizing the philosophy of nihilism, which, in the pop cultural sense of the way, has been abused and misinterpreted regarding its intention by an entire generation of edge lords. Mostly, in using nihilism as a means to justify their very shitty behavior:

You know… Manosphere bro type behavior.

The basic premise of the Übermensch was this idea that, because God is Dead—not in a literal sense of the word but in regards to its relevance and place in the world—Nietzsche believed so too, that we were losing humanity’s authority and guide to morality. That we essentially lost what gave humanity our values to prioritize in this world.

A culture thus devoid of purpose needs to become something more. Something beyond human. Something beyond man, in that patriarchal sense of the words used back in the day, and in this case, become an Übermensch, or superman, to rise above the constraints of the pantheons of morality now long gone, and follow our drive for individualism. And really, to start to live our lives according to our own purpose.

To find the will to live, or else fall to nihilistic tendencies. The latter of which should be stressed as the takeaway, not praise of the philosophy of nihilism.

Yet, the Übermensch also coincided with an inflection point in history. The rise of Nazi fascism a few decades later, which would, of course, appropriate it. That Reich, repurposed the Übermensch for their own political beliefs to fuel it’s own rampage in justifying genocide, fueled by the bastardized of the source along with its iconography of Nordic Mythology.

The Nazi’s would take the Übermensch idea as a propagandist calling marketing a supreme Aryan race. Their justification towards commiting horrendous war crimes.

If my writing teaches anything… It’s that everything that is a story has been told before. That all of this is more or less history.

The Superman/Übermensch was so much less about powers, or even perfection in the very deranged Eugenics sort of way… what it is, and has always been more about… is an idea. A symbol… for whatever that may be.

That humankind can do better. It’s just often been taken the wrong way.

Obviously Fascism Sucks

Historically, Fascism itself doesn’t collapse because it lacks strength—rather, it collapses because strength is often all that it has. All it values.

Honestly, you can’t build a civilization based on principles of “survival of the fittest” without eventually turning that philosophy inward. Scarcity hits. Trust erodes. Paranoia spreads.

A world built on strength alone, driven by conquest, leads to the conclusion that your neighbor will inevitably always become your enemy. Thus, power becomes something you take to hoard, not something meant to be shared.

The problem with Nazi Germany was the same as that of current neo-nazis and those of any conqueror abusing power. Survival of the fittest leads to the demise of ourselves, especially when a war is over, and you start having scarcer resources, which is, honestly, the biggest precursor to an empire’s demise. When Kings mistrust their own neighbors for the sake of maintaining power and control, and of course, conquer and subjugate by fear in attempts to maintain the great illusion of order?

It’s the bottom of the cycle.

You’ve seen it in fiction with works like Macbeth. Game of Thrones. East of Eden. The Crucible. The idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially when someone tries their best to maintain it.

We take a look at the history of Ancient Rome—our western predecessors—with its many emperors that rose and fell, assassinated over and over again. Not because they were weak, mind you, but because the system itself devoured them. It was built for conquest and victory. Yet historically, when there were fewer food and resources? When a class or generation of people feel less stability? Then came more knives in the dark.

And the easiest way to topple an empire?

Was to kill the king

And that, my friends who read these reviews… is my most metaphorical and least spoilery way possible to say what this episode is really about.

Episodes of Invincible are available to stream on Prime Video. New episodes drop Wednesdays at midnight PST.

From Eisner-nominated creators Dave Baker (Mary Tyler MooreHawk) and Nicole Goux (This Place Kills Me) comes a comic book about two young losers in a rock band trying to figure out what life is all about.

The Los Angeles-based creative duo behind such works as Fuck Off Squad, Forest Hills Bootleg Society, Everyone is Tulip, are at it again, this time depicting a band that plays together, lives together… and unfortunately, sleeps together. All for a DIY love letter to being young, messy, and alive out for Top Shelf Productions this month.

Now, for those unfamiliar, Baker made the critically acclaimed Mary Tyler MooreHawk, which was on many best of lists in 2024. This latest book with frequent collaborator Nicole Goux is a laugh-out-loud funny coming-of-age story that’s surprisingly heart-warming. Highly recommended for folks trying to figure out this thing called life.

Here’s what Dave Baker had to say about the new project:

And what artist Nicole Goux had to share in a follow-up:

Check out the preview pages and the synopsis below:

Hannah Lipsky isn’t sure what’s happening.

She dreamed of becoming a fine art painter, but after breaking up with her girlfriend, she’s suddenly dropped out of art school, moved into a flophouse, and gotten roped into singing in a campy horror-punk band. With costumes. To make things even more complicated, she might be hooking up with her housemate/bandmate/high school crush, Jerry. Whatever, I’m sure it’s fine… Now put on your punk’n mask and let’s rock!

PUNK’N HEADS is published by Top Shelf. It’s available now in comic shops everywhere.

With over 1400 folks signed up already, Iron Circus Comics–the crowdfunding queen of championing indie comics—has got a brand new campaign folks should absolutely check out. We’re talking about RUNAWAY TO THE STARS, the latest slice-of-life graphic novel by cartoonist Jay Eaton, and a project that has been in the works for well over a decade.

This is a hard science fiction comic book with a complicated yet fully realized world set within its complex in-universe appendices and extra content. Much like the hit movie this year, Project Hail Mary, this is a tale about cross-species alien best friendships… and AI pirates.

The campaign will also feature bonuses like an exclusive bookplate and a discounted bundle of Iron Circus titles curated by Eaton himself. There’s even free domestic and discounted international shipping if you follow the project before its official launch.

Here’s the full story premise:

Abandoned as an infant on the doorstep of the Nexus Jovia youth foster care facility in a cat carrier, centaur and aerospace engineer Talita has no idea where she came from. She’s spent the vast majority of her life around humans, has very little familiarity with her own species’ cultures, and has always had trouble connecting with anyone — other than sentient AI beings, that is. So when Talita discovers a damaged Centaur spaceship in the Ixion Recycling Plant’s salvage yard with a pirate AI onboard named Bip, she quickly becomes drawn into its plans to escape the planet of Dirtball. But her two human friends, Idrisah and Gillie, aren’t about to let her commit crimes on behalf of a shady AI... not without their help, of course! Because Bip, the pilot of the Runaway, is definitely not telling Talita everything about what happened to the ship’s now-deceased centaur crew, or what mission they might have been on. But despite Bip’s suspiciously shady past, the AI is a charmer and quickly gets the team on board to help. Now all they have to do is secretly repair the ship and get all the clearances needed to file a flight plan… Of course, they just can’t get caught doing it.

Click the link to support the campaign.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE RUNAWAY TO THE STARS CAMPAIGN

Now let me just stress, The DeMonster is not sponsored by nor getting anything out of me sharing this campaign. I genuinely like supporting comics and think it’s important to talk about these things, as we're getting a crazy number of requests these days.

Anyway, if you want to support this campaign and go and see if it’s really for you, check it out via the exclusive excerpt we were given below.

Here’s what creator Jay Eaton had to say about the series:

“This book is the culmination of over a decade of building a science fiction setting and the people who live in it. It continually delights me how many readers see themselves reflected in Talita and her friends. Whether you’re a 3-meter-tall alien, a GMO catgirl, a sapient quantum computer, or just human, there’s something here for you.”

And what Iron Circus publisher C. Spike Trotman adds:

“This story is for anyone who’s ever felt displaced, othered, or unheard. One of the things that makes RUNAWAY TO THE STARS so special is its focus on communication—how hard it is, how messy it can be, and how universal those struggles are, no matter who or what you are.”

The crowdfunding campaign just launched today, so support if ya want.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE RUNWAY TO THE STARS CAMPAIGN

When I was 17, I started a band with my high school best friends called Black Water Jam. I wasn’t the best bass player, but I was great at staying out of the way. Knew even back then how to surround myself with great talent.

There was Sean, the long-haired heartthrob. He could play a guitar as skillfully as the devil could play a fiddle, with his Jimi Hendrix-esque playing ability, playing behind the head or through his teeth. Then there was my best friend, Vinny, the real deal. The most musically talented of the group, who still does this professionally for a living. Vinny could beat a stick to any rhythm. A caricature of every drummer stereotype; the kinds parents warn their daughters about. There was Gordon, the Jerseyite hockey-loving stereotype straight outta Kevin Smith movie (this was NJ), and finally, crazy Peter on keys, a guy who’d only just discovered the internet, who once stopped us mid-session to request we play our music more like Purple.

To this day… I still don’t know what that means.

We played wherever we could. Basement shows. Dive bars. Places where some of NJ’s best came out of, like the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, NJ. This was at the dawn of smartphones. When Myspace was relevant, and Instagram was new and a space mostly for hipsters.

T’was an era when New Brunswick still had a basement show music scene, just shortly after the band Thursday put the area on the map as what would become, for years, the rock-and-roll DiY basement show era of music, famous for being the place for a new band to be a lifetime ago. Messy, loud, indulgent, and a little dangerous. This was punk… well, the guys would say hardcore, but regardless, however you labeled the movement… it was real.

Eventually, I went off to college, and the band ended, and we went our separate ways. But Vinny and Sean, who hated each other before I brought em back together to play in those days… well, those guys kept going. Bigger shows. Better band. Opening acts at places like the Stone Pony and Starland Ballroom. Hell, as STATELMAN, they even opened for Saves the Day.

It was an era remembered now by just about no one, relevant only to those who lived it, in that moment of time. Central New Jersey hardcore punk scene circa 2009.

Still, I was lucky to have got to touch that world. Knew what it’s like with the late nights and stage lights and cheap beer. Smell of stale cigarette butts and that feeling you get when you see crowds of strangers coming together, dancing around to something that you and your best friends had made, and all the craziness that comes with being in a band. Once you know it. Once ya do it. Once you’ve lived it… That scene sticks with you.

That special reminder that you were alive in that moment in time.

Proctor is a comic book created in the spirit of that punk scene. It’s a supernatural, punk-fueled story from writer Carmen Costa and a team of amazing artists, including Marcos Martins and Riccardo Cecchi. It’s a tale about love and loss, finding yourself, and tragedy.

With a Project we Love Kickstarter status that’s already successfully funded, you can still support the entire run for a few more days right now.

You Can Support The Campaign By Clicking Here

The story follows Samantha Hale, a witch/monster hunter with a past and a proclivity for loud music and late nights that carry onward to the next morning. A binge-drinking, show-hopping wild child, who’s comfortable in the chaos but still carrying a burden that is her family’s legacy. Which is when that call to action comes a calling… and it hits hard. Details below.

PROCTOR’s protagonist, Samantha Hale, can’t seem to get out of her own way, but what is a girl with an Art History degree and a fondness for binge drinking to do when all she’s ever been good at is stage diving and making trouble? When her mother, one of the most powerful witches in the North East, stumbles upon the ancient Staff of Kings that Sam’s father hid before he died, Sam finds herself on a globetrotting, dimension-jumping adventure in an attempt to keep the staff safe. From finding foreign help in the streets of Verona to welcoming assistance from one of the strongest Voodoo clans in history, the fate of Sam’s journey rests in her ability to swallow her pride, make new friends, and fight off the teams of supernatural assassins hot on her trail.

We sat with Carmen Costa to delve more into this universe, talk about music, and figure out just how he’d made a NJ Punk Comics scene blend with supernatural monster slaying.

This Interview was edited for clarity.

Any new additions to the Proctor playlist for this final stretch?

CARMEN COSTA: Yes, sir! I have put together a playlist of songs ONLY from 2025-2026 that will be going out to all backers courtesy of Sam. The songs lean mostly pop-punk/emo/alternative. Nothing bothers me more than folks complaining that there’s “no good music” anymore.

Listen, I love me some Tell All Your Friends, and I’ve argued that The Starting Line is one of the greatest pop-punk bands of all time; however, there’s plenty good happening right now, and I wanted to showcase that. If No Pressure’s “Wearing Thin” isn’t on your newest playlist, you’re missing out.

Now, the reason I wanted to do this is cause we came up in the same Jersey indie music scene. I respect your hustle as I see ya tabling some of the same shows I do side by side. How important was that DIY punk spirit to building Proctor?

CARMEN COSTA: It’s the MOST important part of what I do. It influences everything. I had a conversation with another publisher the other day, and we were talking about what it means to be “indie.” He almost had me convinced that we should stop calling ourselves indie labels to make sure people take us seriously.

He’s a great guy, and I understand his perspective; however, after thinking about it, I don’t think I could ever do it. It’s too ingrained in what I do and who I am, and it’s deeply influenced by the working-class background I come from.

My hands strung guitars and poured concrete and carried 4x12’s and drum kits up the famous Philadelphia Troc balcony steps (R.I.P.). Harpoon is a kick-you-in-your-teeth publishing house inspired more so by record labels like Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords than anything that’s happening in publishing.

As a former front-man, my motto has always been: Give me the mic, and I’ll show up. I don’t need a sound check. Mix me during the first song.

That spirit is what fueled PROCTOR the minute I started working on the script.

I’d go so far as to argue that you’re taking that New Jersey punk spirit energy internationally through Sam. Was that intentional, or did it just evolve that way?

CARMEN COSTA: Well, by the design of the first issue, I guess I can say that it was intentional, but I feel like the cloth that I’m cut from has always been propped up by the support from international audiences, so in a lot of ways, it’s just a natural progression of the scene at large. I always felt that comic fans who live overseas and want to see Thursday play Full Collapse would probably also be the same folks who want to read PROCTOR.

It also helps that I’m in love with international travel.

There is a lot of that globe-trotting in Proctor. Are you pulling from real travel experience or building these places from imagination?

CARMEN COSTA: A little bit of both. I’m obsessed with the Indiana Jones series. It was so important to me as a little kid growing up poor in a very small town. My high school graduating class had 97 kids in it. I was stuck in a place so small, and the world seemed so big through that lens.

With PROCTOR, I wanted to tell a story that echoed that same sense of adventure. I think it’s one of the things that sets PROCTOR apart from a lot of other supernatural stories. Much of what I write about is inspired by the things I’ve seen.

Issue Three, for example, has Sam, Sofia, and Tom running through a catacomb in Rome. I was in those catacombs. I love train stations - it’s why you get one in that same issue (drawn beautifully by Riccardo Cecchi). I love walking through large cities and getting lost.

My wife and I recently visited Japan. A few years ago, we were in Greece. Fifteen years ago I backpacked through Iceland. Who knows where we’ll end up next, but I want fans to experience what I experienced, and I feel like you miss the smaller details that inform some of the larger parts of a story unless you’re there, wandering through an alley at midnight yourself.

Now that I’m writing this, it wreaks of privilege, so I want to say that I’ve made a ton of sacrifices in my life to ensure that I can do these things. I don’t have kids. I bought a fixer-upper in an area folks told me to stay away from. I drive a 10-year-old used Honda. My life is pretty simple outside of traveling.

I can see the 15 year old version of myself reading this back in 2000 thinking “must be nice, asshole” so I also want to say that it’s not a requirement, it’s just something that makes the writing process more meaningful to me. Also, you’d be surprised how inexpensively you can explore the world if you plan accordingly.

So this started as a book before becoming a comic. What changed? What made you realize this story needed to be visual?

CARMEN COSTA: The honest response: Failure. Sort of. I shopped the book to agents for a little over a year. During that time, I racked up almost 100 rejection letters, but I also had beta readers coming to me and telling me that they loved the story. Meanwhile, after picking up a part time gig at my local comic shop, it hit me. I loved comics. Why not turn this thing into a comic book? I made the decision that night in the store and never looked back.

And you weave these prose elements into the comic. Did that make the transition easier or did it create new challenges?

CARMEN COSTA: It absolutely created new challenges. Those illustrated short stories ballooned my production costs, and it forced me to create new and thoughtful ways to actually sell the story. More importantly, most of those chapters that I pulled the stories from required a TON of reworking. The first story, “This One Time, In Italy…” needed the least amount of work, but the second one, “The Funeral” required some serious heavy lifting. I had the most fun, though, working on the third story, “Firsts” because it was the FIRST story that I wrote outside of that original manuscript. I love writing traditional prose, so it was fun to get back to that world and work those muscles. For the volume 2 graphic novel, I will be adding a FOURTH story, and that, too, will be completely new. I don’t think I’ll ever leave prose behind. It’s why I love writing the notes at the start of the issues, too.

Now, Sam’s in that late-20s messy ‘figuring it out’ phase. How personal was that for you, and how important is the idea of second chances in this story?

CARMEN COSTA: Very. I tell people all the time, Sam is 100% me. My 20s were a mess. I was drinking a ton and terribly self-destructive. I didn’t know this at the time, but a lot of my more chaotic decisions were the result of some undiagnosed mood issues. I’m 41 now, in therapy, and seven years sober. The book, in a lot of ways, is about sifting through the sand and sorting out who you are.

As far as second chances are concerned, I really deeply believe in them. I held on to a lot of rage about a lot of things for a really long time, and I’m a firm believer now in the idea of forgiveness. People are messy, and oftentimes, things are more complicated than we would like to believe. I wanted to explore that theme with Sam’s story.

What’s it been like collaborating with Riccardo Cecchi and Marcos Martins?

CARMEN COSTA: Man… how much time do we have? It’s amazing. I owe finding them to Tim, my good buddy and the manager at The Comic Book Store where I work in Glassboro, NJ. He convinced me to enter a talent search last minute as a writer. Riccardo entered it as an artist, and at the end of the competition, the person running it encouraged the artists to post their work. Riccardo shared his pages, and under it, I wrote - “If you don’t win, this is a scam.” We hit it off shortly after, and that was that.

He introduced me to Marcos, and everything clicked. Riccardo is insanely talented and, more importantly, he has a great eye for storytelling. It was easy to make changes he suggested, and I felt like, with every page, he was getting tighter and tighter as an artist, too. I’ve told folks this before, and I mean it: He is one of my favorite comic artists of all time. Marcos is also a wizard, and there were times where I had to check my notes about colors because he was so dialed in. He would send me a page or a cover, and I would think - I didn’t write ANY coloring notes for this page, but it is EXACTLY as I envisioned it.

Working with the both of them has been a dream. With that said, I do need to say this: Riccardo had to step away from comic creation and return to the world of software engineering, which is a huge bummer. I totally understand. He’s my age and he has a family to take care of, and the salary of a software engineer is far greater than what most artists are making even working on pages for some of the top publishers. I’m bringing this up to say, we need to do a better job of taking care of our artists, and that also speaks to what fans are willing to pay for books. I’m also saying this as someone who has paid out over $50,000 to creative talent since I started this journey, and I have yet to see a dime of financial return on my investment in the project as a whole.

Publishers, writers, artists — the ones doing this at some of the highest levels — we take on a HUGE financial risk when we decide to start this journey. Riccardo and Marcos are special special people. Folks like them are making an insane sacrifice. Protect them at all costs.

A quick note: Because Riccardo had to step away mid-way through Issue #6, I had the privilege of bringing on Marcelo Costa (Radiant Black Co-Creator) to finish the middle pages of the story. I think it works well, and he was great to work with. Prior to PROCTOR, he’d come on as a colorist for another project that I’m currently shopping around.

That’s another story for another time, but I can’t wait to share it with the world.

So now that we’re near the end, I gotta say, the name Proctor really lands. How far in advance did you have that planned out?

CARMEN COSTA: That was the plan from the start. I wanted to turn “big reveals” like it on their head a bit in that, ultimately, it doesn’t change much. I speak to this a bit in the final note for the story. Sometimes, we think BIG moments matter, and for us — in the moment — they do. But in the grand scheme of things, they actually hardly ever do. I’ve been through some pretty traumatic experiences, and when you’re living them, they shake you to your core.

Then, Wednesday comes. And then Thursday. And then Christmas. And you realize that if it wasn’t that thing, maybe it was going to be something else. For me, the reveal is more of a mechanism to have a conversation about the other stuff. When the movie cuts off and the lights go on and everyone goes home — it allows me to have a conversation about the inbetween.

Sam’s mom, Clara. She’s a witch, hunter, and legacy figurehead of a mentor. Was she inspired by anyone in particular? She’s a hoot.

CARMEN COSTA: In many ways, she’s my mom. In others, she’s a mom that I’ve met before. I’m a fulltime teacher. I was one of two men in an 8 person department, and in my current role, I’m one of four male teachers in an entire building. Most of the people I surround myself with are moms. With that being said I’ve learned a very important thing: Being a mom is hard.

In one turn, I wanted to showcase the messiness that can exist in the parent/child relationship. I had a truly toxic relationship with my mom for a while. It was very hard living in my home growing up. It wasn’t until I started teaching did I develop a better perspective.

For example, you’re in a parent meeting and a mom is sobbing because of something that’s happening in school with her child. Perhaps, on paper, the parent has a resume that suggests they should have everything figured out. They have other kids who have come through the system who were never “problems” but now, here the mom is — a mess — because, suddenly, the rules have changed. They start talking about their own childhoods.

Education is the business of empathy, you know? Flash forward, and I’m at my parents’ house on a Sunday and my mom and dad are telling the rest of us stories about what it was like raising me and my brother. They talk about what it was like for them growing up. They say things like, “You think YOU had it bad? Listen to this story…” and we all just sit there, baffled. They admit to making mistakes as parents. They talk about making sacrifices. You start to realize that maybe parents are just trying to outrun something, too.

Like I said — it was really hard growing up in my house. My parents were not “cool parents.” Music wasn’t frequently played in my house. They don’t have favorite bands. My parents were not artsy. No one read or watched movies, really. I’ve never received a birthday present. But now that I’m on the other side of it all, I have a better understanding of why. My parents (and in some ways, my extended family) wanted to make sure I was prepared for what was to come.

Here’s a great example: It was hard growing up in my house, but it was also hard growing up in my neighborhood, and it was even harder working for my uncle pouring concrete. After several summers working for him, I eventually asked why he was so hard on me. He looked at me and said, “I had to make you mean. You don’t survive growin’ up in this town unless you’re a little mean.” I’m not saying he’s right, but I am saying that no one truly knows what they are doing, and most folks are just trying to sort it all out as they go based on their own experiences.

I really wanted that to come through in PROCTOR. Clara Hale is my mom, my mother-in-law, my dad, my uncle, and the tired voice of every mother I’ve had a conversation with in the teachers’ break room. In some places, I take the funniest parts of those people. In others, the saddest. Ultimately, I just wanted to honor the folks in my life who, perhaps to a fault, are just trying to do better.

That’s so true to heart, dude, and why it works. So, without spoilers, just how important are themes of family, bloodline, and legacy in shaping both the Hale and the Williams family, and the story as a whole? What’s the heart of your story here?

CARMEN COSTA: So, without echoing too much of what I wrote in the previous answers, I’ll say that those topics aren’t nearly as important as the topic of loss and trauma. I think we often overlook that topic when we want to talk about family. Most families are shaped by the more difficult moments that surround what it means to be human. There is this Listener verse for the song “Wooden Heart” that opens with, “We are all born to broken people on their most honest day of living,” and it’s always stuck with me. So I’m not so much interested in the topic of family or legacy as much as I am about the answer you get when you ask: what happens to a family when something shakes it to its core? We want to believe that the family can overcome all of the trauma, but at 41, I’ve learned that that’s rarely the case and, more importantly, it’s okay that such is the case. All you can do is move on and do a little less damage to the ones you love than the folks who came before you did to you.

I love how each issue opens with that burst of monster chaos before settling into character. The non-stop energy of the pacing has a punk vibe. Do you agree?

CARMEN COSTA: It does, but to be completely fair, the idea was taken from a less (or more?) obvious place. I love the opening scene to Raiders of the Lost Arc. It captivated me as a kid. That’s all I was trying to do. Now, with that said, Indiana Jones is SUPER punk rock, so I guess that’s perfect, haha.

Very. I still feel like the Jersey DNA in this book is real. The hardcore punk scene, bars, and attitude. It feels like a time capsule of that 2007–2009 having grown up in the thick of it myself. How intentional was that?

CARMEN COSTA: Very. More importantly, growing up in the scene in 2002 — which was probably the height of my involvement as a teen — there was nothing worse than the inauthenticity I saw, too.

With PROCTOR, I wanted to make sure that there were details floating around that helped cement the Philly and South Jersey scene into Sam’s universe one way or another. It’s one of the reasons why EATER, the fictional band in the story, exists. I wanted to make Sam a character that you would meet at a show. With the things she says and how she says them, I wanted to make sure readers felt like they all knew Samantha Hale in high school.

With that being said, even characters like Irish Tom bring their own punk energy without being overtly punk. I didn’t want anything to be overkill. In the back of my mind, I always have Anti-Flag’s “Captain Anarchy” and Say Anything’s “Admit it,” playing. There’s a fine line you have to walk.

I say all of this to say, someone will absolutely call me a poser for publishing this book. I totally understand, and I totally deserve it hahahaha. Such is the scene, but at least it keeps us honest.

Alright and finally, For someone jumping in now—why Proctor? What are they getting that they’re not finding anywhere else?

CARMEN COSTA: PROCTOR is not a gimmick, and this publishing journey that I’m on is not a hobby. I am not “giving this a shot” because I think comics are cool. I am trying to say something profoundly meaningful about living.

I am building a legitimate, indie publishing business that echoes the same energy as the punk music labels I grew up on. I am working diligently to make sure I am paying artists a living wage. Sam Hale, the protagonist of this story, saved my life. She helped me learn how to forgive, and I have a better relationship with the people in my life because of her and this story.

I wanted to create a special place in this world for folks, especially for those who feel like they are lost at sea. There are some comics that are the equivalent of eating a potato-chip. They are fun. You get to chuckle. You move on. This is not that book. Trust that I am trying my best to say something meaningful. I’ve been to too many funerals, and I managed to find peace creating this world. I just hope you can find some, too, by visiting it.

There are only a few days left to support Proctor on Kickstarter. If you’d like to check out the series, check it out below.

You Can Support The Campaign Here

Revealed during the Triple-I Showcase earlier today, Prove You’re Human is the latest debut from studio Sunset Visitor 斜陽過客. Known for its post-apocalypse horror game 1000xResist, which was so good that it won one of the highest honors for storytelling with a Peabody award, if you like story, and strangely… if you like comic books and story, this is probably 1000% up your alley.

The best way to describe this new indie video game is that it’s a narrative horror/sci-fi that’s like the movies Ex Machina meets the TV Show Severance.

What do I mean by that? Well, here’s the premise:

An AI dares to dream she is human. And you? You’ve been hired to put her in her place. Prove You’re Human splits the main character in two: you’re the digital copy of a person who was paid to test a corporate product…but the product, Mesa, is convinced it’s as human as you are. Maybe even more.

Take breaks from work to roam an idyllic landscape and CAPTCHA surrounding environments. Spend your days in a comfortable virtual world, learn how to break down Mesa’s defenses, and eliminate her delusions. Maintain your own humanity as you eventually decide if you’d like to re-merge your two selves or discard your work self.

And here’s the gorgeous preview.

No but really, Check this out because these are the best video game storytellers today people are really only learning about now

1001x Resist is highly considered by indie tastemakers and underground reviewers like myself, as one of the greatest commentaries ever made about our recent times. It follows a tiny society of human clones living on the fringe of a post-apocalypse having been almost been wiped out by an alien pandemic virus.

This game was a direct commentary about the past few years rife with existential thematic takes about the pandemic, societal collapse, and Asian diaspora; plus, was a metaphor regarding a whole lot of destruction caused by unaddressed intergenerational trauma.

Which, in my opinion, is kind of the root of most of our problems today (I’d argue most wars and the overall terribleness of the things happening right now, are the direct result of the unaddressed sins of our past across the board, which is why I stress about the importance of stories).

Anyway, not only is this amazing studio a proven hit maker in terms of storytelling but this new game is being published by Black Tabby Publishing—the new arm of the Slay the Princess team, co-founded by comics indie darling Abby Howard, who made the jump from comics into games and clearly hasn’t lost her taste for the uncomfortable.

Abby Howard was also, a short decade ago, one of the coolest indie comics creators of the 2010s and someone that never gets enough credit, who then choose to leave it all behind to start a gaming company with her husband Tony Arias.

So you’ve got two amazing dev studios with a publishing arm and a hell of a reputation as everyone involved are considered the best-of-the-best writers in the indie space for narrative video games; with Black Tabby making the fan-fucking-tastic existential horror games like Scarlett Hollow & Slay The Princess. Which I reviewed before.

I don’t really know how else to say this but…

Be hyped. These are people making real art and great art, without the giant AAA budgets and away from the toxicity of the big sides of the gaming and comics industry.

And they’re doing this great story about AI without AI.

Invincible has officially entered its full-blown war arc, and Episode 6 makes it clear that it’s personal. Episode 6 takes place in the aftermath of last week’s cliffhanger, which focuses in on why we’re fighting: ideology, legacy, and above all else: family.

It starts with some emotionally charged segments that, yet again, highlight what’s immediately working for this season: a condensed, multi-issue episode packed with montages. This one shows the contrast between the Coalition of Planets and the Viltrumite Empire.

The show is careful to highlight the difference between unity and control, between a fragile alliance and an imposed empire. It’s your classic sci-fi evil empire framing like you’d see in Star Wars or Dune, with fleets of ships. armies colliding, and even space lasers. Yet, Invincible grounds it in something a bit more human.

The Viltrumites still position themselves as saviors, bringing order to a chaos universe, but the cracks in that ideology are starting to show. The cost is too high, there’s too few of them left, and that lie is becoming too painstakingly obvious to the viewer and the few Viltrumites who remain.

A lot happens in this episode but it’s basically an all-action episode bouncing between two fronts, starting with the Coalition. The rebels, led by Thaedus, scramble to hold the front line, while familiar faces return into the fold to aid them.

Characters like Allen and Tech Jacket regroup with the coalition. There is even a reintroduction of Battle Beast, which adds another layer of chaos to the war, which surely enough, quickly turns in favor as months pass. Each hero shares their own sentimental moments whether it be through battle, seeing them bond over video games, or even just reuniting with an old friend.

The war is pretty good and even though it’s just begun, it feels like we’re in the thick of it already.

Yet the real story is about Omni-Man and Oliver

In the aftermath of the battle between Mark and Conquest, we find the boys stranded and forced to survive together. Here, we see all our main characters slow down to let Oliver have moments of catharsis with his father.

This is where Invincible continues to separate itself from other superhero stories. Because after all the destruction left by Nolan’s actions, we’re left with a deeply uncomfortable question: who are you when your role models have failed you? Likewise, for Nolan, how do you pick up the pieces of a life you destroyed? It’s something that continues to be explored right here.

Nolan, to his credit, or perhaps his guilt, tries to make amends. Yet it’s always rocky.

For example, early in this episode, Nolan buries Conquest, a gesture that feels less like an homage to honor. Yet, it is selfishness out of obligation due to the person he used to be, or is this actual empathic reform?

The show does not let him off easy, as Oliver questions everything about it; lest we forget, conquest almost killed the Grayson boys along with Atom Eve.

This episode highlights a lot of the ways Nolan pretty much failed his sons across the board as a father. So naturally, because it’s TV, Oliver and Nolan spend a lot of time together, and that becomes the emotional core of the episode.

A tale as old as time. This plot features an examination of who they are today compared to who they used to be, but it’s done through survival adventures and a whole lot of eating alien monsters for nourishment. Still, what’s important are the conversations about family and identity; with Oliver processing who his father really is and what that means for him.

There’s some real growth seen here in this episode. Not of forgiveness, but understanding.

And yes, this is packed with action, but it is the quieter moments that land the hardest. The ones where characters are forced to sit with what they have done and what they are becoming. It’s big, it’s brutal, and most importantly, it’s emotionally messy in all the right ways.

And it’s taking it all one step further… bringing the war to Viltrum itself.

Episodes of Invincible are available to stream on Prime Video. New episodes drop Wednesdays at midnight PST.

Our friends over at Superfan have had a podcast going on for over a year now, which is now entering its second season.

Co-hosted by PR veteran David Hyde (DC Comics), legendary industry designer on works such as Star Wars (He invented Darth Maul’s Lightsaber) and Eyes of Wakanda, Christian Gossett, along with Mad Cave Executive Editor Kris Simon (whose substack is pretty dope if you haven’t read it), these are folks who are some of the coolest and friendliest names in comics and whose podcast guest features some of the best of the best talking… well… interests outside of comics!

Edited by Fanbase Press President and another friend, Bryant Dillion, and also sponsored by friends over at the Fanbase Press, this new season returns today with an interview with Eisner and Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist, designer, zinemaker, and illustrator Jim Rugg on… wrestling!

The interviews featured here are with some of the comics industry’s greatest, like Marjorie Liu and Kelly Sue DeConnick last year, but are always a fun get to know ya about, well, life and interests outside of just comics!

Season 2 will feature talks with Jim Rugg, Maia Kobabe, Johnnie Christmas, Paul Pope, Erica Henderson, and Elsa Charretier.

Here’s the PR below.

What fascinates, captivates, and influences the people who create comics and graphic novels? In Season Two of the Superfan Podcast, co-hosts Kristen Simon (Executive Editor at Mad Cave Studios’ Nakama Press), Christian Gossett (Story Artist, Eyes of Wakanda, The Red Star), and Superfan Promotions founder David Hyde will talk with some of the biggest stars of the comic book industry to find out what they’re passionate about — outside of comics.

The Superfan Podcast season two debuts on March 13, 2026, with a conversation about professional wrestling with Eisner and Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist, designer, zinemaker, and illustrator Jim Rugg (True Crime Funnies, Hulk Grand Design). In the freewheeling, no-holds-barred episode, Rugg reflects on who has the best gimmick in wrestling, the appeal of heels and heroes, and the art of kayfabe.

Season Two of the Superfan Podcast features an all-star line-up of award-winning writers and artists, including Gender Queer cartoonist Maia Kobabe on the appeal of K-pop, #1 New York Times bestselling cartoonist Johnnie Christmas (Swim Team) on the mystery of Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, Eisner Award-winning artist/designer Paul Pope (THB) on the glorious career of guitarist Rowland S Howard, Eisner Award-winning artist Erica Henderson (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) on her love of Terry Pratchett’s seminal, satirical Discworld novels and acclaimed artist Elsa Charretier (Love Everlasting) on the many merits of game-based dog training. For each episode, the co-hosts also share a dessert recipe and a recommended cocktail and mocktail inspired by the conversation.

“As AI continues to creep into our lives, it’s arguably more important than ever to celebrate the people who make the art we love,” said co-host David Hyde. “It’s been tremendously rewarding to talk with creative people that we admire about the things that they’re deeply passionate about.”

“When I listen to my favorite creators speak, what I’m hoping for are insights about the moments that we so rarely hear described,” said co-host Christian Gossett, who was the writer, artist, and creator of the hit Image Comics series The Red Star before working on movies for George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and Tim Burton, and directing television episodes for the CW network. “How is what creators love built into what they do? What is it they are trying to bring to their chosen genres? What cultural gap are they unknowingly attempting to fill? The Superfan Podcast has helped inspire these kinds of conversations, and that’s very exciting for us.”

Gossett is best known for his radical concept drawing of a double-bladed lightsaber, which was personally approved by George Lucas and was later introduced as the signature weapon of Darth Maul. For both season one and two of the Superfan Podcast, he has drawn portraits of each of the guests. Season one features Rodney Barnes on Stephen King, Marc Guggenheim on Billy Joel, , Kelly Sue DeConnick on Alan Alda, Matt Kindt on John le Carré, Marjorie Liu on gardening, and Patrick McDonnell on Frank Zappa.

“Especially with everything going on in the world, it feels extra important to celebrate joy and creativity,” said co-host Kris Simon. “The conversations on the Superfan Podcast are deep dives into fandom. It’s a genuine thrill to chart someone’s fandom and how it’s evolved over time, whether we’re talking with Maia Kobabe on eir favorite K-Pop songs and K-pop fan fiction or chatting with Johnnie Christmas about the catharsis of Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass.”

The Superfan Podcast is a production of Superfan Media. Season Two’s episodes have been edited by Bryant Dillon with production help by Fanbase Press, who are title sponsors of Season Two’s episodes. The Superfan Podcast theme song is performed by the band Low in the Shag, featuring Daniel Shulman on bass, Sasha Brustinov on keyboards, Ziv Fisher on drums, Eric Garcia on guitar, Jacob Shulman on saxophone, and Derek Zimmerman on percussion. The song was written by Daniel Shulman, who has played bass for Garbage and is currently performing with The Halloween Jack, alongside Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses), Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), and Eric Dover (Alice Cooper). The Superfan Podcast logo is designed by Criswell Lappin, former Creative Director of the legendary Metropolis Magazine, whose design work can be seen at criswelllappin.com.

Anyway, check out their Substack pages linked way above and listen to their podcast. It’s pret-ty cool if I do say so myself. Which I am. I’m particularly interested in hearing Maia Kobabe as a guest, as I’ve been selling Gender Queer in abundance at my traveling book store that I take across all of New Jersey to get people to read comics who don’t read comics. Plus, you know, it’s nice to get the most banned book in America in people’s hands.

When Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie lost his 14-year-old brother in a tragic skating accident, he reportedly took it upon himself to impersonate him to console his ever-mourning mother—the only thing, it seemed, that brought her any comfort. Barrie, in some rehearsed sense, became the boy who never grew up… attempting to immortalize his sibling by living as him for years.

That impulse would return through the adventures of Peter Pan, with Barrie spending the rest of his life in that world. A tale of Lost Boys and orphans and children who were never allowed to grow up.

Some would call it fantasy, though in my psychodynamic experience, I call it allegory. An attempt meant to preserve something: the lost children… who died prematurely.

Peter Pan himself, therein echoes an even older myth taken in the name: of Pan, the Greek god of wilderness and music. I’m a firm believer that almost every story is tied to an even older story, and not unlike the Pied Piper in folklore, this Pan leads others—often children—astray and never quite brings them back... Essentially, a horror story beneath the surface.

Take then, for example, the name Neverland, which insists upon its own logic: a place of “never.” A location defined by impossibility, built on flights of fantasy and the idea of escape—meant to depict a manner as to never land at all.

It is a place shaped by its roots in the word: never. A mythos built upon rejection, and a loss surrounding something that could never be. Themes circled around the loss of the innocence of childhood.

A lifetime ago, I studied J.M. Barrie extensively in college as part of my psychology degree rooted in psychoanalytic theory. What stood out to me, at least for the purpose of this conversation, was how Peter Pan, despite its fairytale qualities of young kids at play against swashbuckling pirates, carried something darker.

That is at the core of Land of Never, the latest from Mad Cave Studios. It’s a dig into what happens when you strip the fantasy away and focus in on the one angle of the story nobody really wants to sit with: a parent left behind to pick up the pieces when their child disappears.

From writer Steve Orlando (Gatchaman: Galactor, Scarlet Witch, Hello Darkness) and artist Miguel Mora, along with colors by Fares Maese, lettering by Micah Myers, and a Cover B by Sebastián Píriz… this tale is one about a missing persons mystery told from the perspective of Jim Hoke, a retired pathologist and parent whose credibility is already fractured.

Check out the preview pages and the synopsis of the series below.

Six months ago, Jim Hoke’s daughter Wendy disappeared from her room. All Jim caught was a glimpse of a hulking figure at the window—the kind of late-night vision that’s easily written off as a hallucination. No one believes Jim’s story—and six months later, the retired pathologist is just looking for anyone who’ll still listen. And even if he finds someone, should they believe him? Jim had already retired early to plant evidence against an alleged killer. His word doesn’t mean much—and it means even less with him as a suspect in Wendy’s disappearance. He can’t leave town, he can’t forget what he saw, and he doesn’t get any sleep thanks to the nightmares.

With Wendy’s disappearance declared the coldest of cases, Jim believes he’s the only one who cares about finding his daughter. And he’s got a withered Father’s Day card in his pocket to remind him—all he can do is his best. So he’d better step it up. Jim goes into business for himself, tracking leads and harassing anyone polite enough to listen to his story. He dives into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, until he meets someone else like him. Then another, then another, a whole community of people who’ve lost someone to a cryptid they call the Floating Man—just like the huge creature Jim saw take Wendy. Suddenly, Wendy’s abductor has a name—the Floating Man. And Jim’s obsession has direction—he’s got to track down the Floating Man, uncover his crimes, and free not just his daughter Wendy, but everyone who’s been lost.

Preview Pages Courtesy of Mad Cave

A mix of crime noir and cryptid folklore horror, Land of Never #1 will be on sale June 17, 2026, with Final Order Cut-off on May 25.

There’s something special about mid-century unsettling science fiction. The kind of work that came out of the mid-1900s, built for minds like Harlan Ellison, whose I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream now feels less like fiction and more like a warning about the AI nightmare-fueled reality creeping closer every day.

It’s the same uneasy, imaginative space that artists like the great Moebius thrived in. Important stories that feel like they should have a stronger voice right now. Work that’s futuristic yet unsettling in a horror kinda way.

Which is why, fans of strange science fiction should check out Matt Lesniewski’s Faceless and the Family: Maze of the Mechanical Aliens #1, as it’s a comic in tune with that spirit of the greats.

It’s a science fiction tale set on… a hand… and follows a strange, faceless alien and his found family of cosmonauts, continuing the bizarre and compelling story set up from Faceless and the Family.

The comic is packed with dense, chaotic crosshatching, worlds that feel alive in the worst possible ways, and features uniquely weird characters that seem like they’re barely holding it together. Dropping this July, the new series picks up right after the 2024 original and wastes no time pulling you back in.

Here’s the setup along with some original artwork:

The space-faring rogue known as Faceless and his found family of adventurers are about to encounter a new challenge– stronger, stranger, and more perplexing than any they’ve faced before. Roving the backwaters of the class-segregated alien world called the Hand Planet, Faceless is plunged into his most harrowing ordeal yet– bonded to a living suit of extraterrestrial armor that refuses to let him go. As the armor’s inscrutable will tightens its grip, Faceless finds himself physically under siege. Enter a bizarre, labyrinthine world of impossible logic and nightmarish wonder as Faceless and his unlikely family must embark on a harrowing quest to free him– if freedom is even possible.

Here’s what creator Matt Lesniewski had to say about the new run:

“Get ready for more Faceless! The journey picks up right where it left off at the end of Volume One, but this is a brand new story! That’s right… the quest to find Faceless’ family continues but the crew is faced with an otherworldly obstacle, as well as the introduction of some new characters. Pick things up here or start at the very beginning while you can… you’ve got well over 200 pages of imaginative crosshatched chaos to jump into. Hope to see you on the Hand Planet. Grab your weapon. Join the family…”

And here’s what Oni’s president Hunter Gorinson, had to say:

“With each and every new page, Matt Lesniewski continues to showcase exactly why he is one of the most engrossing, exciting and talented visual storytellers of his generation. Bursting with meticulous detail and some of the most extraordinarily alien environments of 21st century comics, Faceless’ all-new adventure is the perfect gateway into the weird and wondrous world of Matt’s limitless imagination – one that comes richly populated with a heart-rending cast of fearless and fascinating characters to boot. It’s possible you’ve experienced a comic like this before, but only in your dreams – this is the perfect opportunity to discover why Matt Lesniewski’s work must be seen to truly be believed.”

Faceless and the Family: Maze of the Mechanical Aliens #1 (of 4) features covers by Lesniewski, Dave Stewart (Hellboy), Kelley Jones (Batman: Red Rain, The Sandman) with José Villarrubia (Absolute Swamp Thing), and Noah Bailey (Station Grand).

FACELESS AND THE FAMILY: MAZE OF THE MECHANICAL ALIENS #1 (OF 4)

Story & Art by Matt Lesniewski
Cover A by Matt Lesniewski with Dave Stewart

Cover B by Kelley Jones with José Villarrubia

Cover C by Noah Bailey
Cover D (1:10) B&W Variant by Matt Lesniewski

Cover E (1:20) B&W Variant by Kelley Jones

On Sale: July 1, 2026
$5.99 | 32 Pages |
FOC: 06/08/26

Midseason episodes are where things are supposed to escalate, and this one delivers on just that on both a climactic and emotional level.

It’s the episode everyone’s been waiting for: set with massive, Dragon Ball Z-styled fights colliding with something much more grounded in its first act: set up storylines about the reason anyone goes to war in the first place.

I’m talking family. But I’m meaning purpose. The calm before the storm.

It’s the reasons why we fight to save the loved ones we’re trying to protect… even when you’re not entirely sure you deserve to be loved in the first place, like in the case with Nolan.

The hour kicks off with the return of Omni-Man/Nolan back on Earth, confronting his past, while bearing the weight of everything he’s done: season one’s destruction, the death he caused, and the fear that it left on the people on Earth. This comes to a head in multiple ways, but really, it’s one big moment that delivers the most dramatic moment of the entire series.

Without getting into spoilers (also because Prime said not to), Sandra Oh turns in a performance here that’s on another level. It lands. Hard. It’ll be the thing most talked about besides the battles this episode.

These moments of Nolan’s reflection culminate in a devastating scene with Art Rosenbaum, voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill, where the show reminds us that redemption isn’t clean. That sometimes “I’m sorry” doesn’t fix anything. Sometimes it just confirms how broken things are.

Meanwhile, Oliver steps out of the shadows and into the fire in his own self-recruitment story arc. His decision to join the war isn’t just about proving himself: it’s also about confronting Nolan, forcing a reckoning that’s been a long time coming.

There’s a real sense here that the kid is gone, and Nolan missed out on his entire childhood. And what’s left is someone trying to define himself in the middle of inherited violence.

Oliver struggles with figuring out who he is in these next few episodes and how he can make a difference. It’s a good journey of self-discovery as he’s neither like Mark nor like Omni-Man… just someone in between.

And then there’s the music. This season has been quietly stacking great songs, and Sarah Jaffe’s “Clementine” might be the best of them. It plays over a family dinner scene that feels suspended in time. A fragile moment that maybe final. The kind everyone in the room knows things are about to break.

This is also where the Viltrumite war truly begins to take shape. The episode smartly builds through some intimate character beats before unleashing chaos.

Without spoilers, it hits fast with every single character—brutal, relentless, and borderline absurd in terms of scale, with some final moments that take Invincible to the next level of intensity.

The closest comparison I can make is Dragon Ball Z, but with weight. Something where every punch here means something and these finishers are meant to leave audience flabbergasted in terms of its grotesquery.

Yet through it all, the core of it stays locked in on the family of Mark, Nolan, and Oliver; while characters like Tech Jacket and Allen widen the battlefield.

What stands out most in this one is Mark himself. There’s a shift in how he fights. It’s not clean. It’s not efficient. It’s personal. And that makes it uncomfortable in a way the show hasn’t fully leaned into before.

Because there’s a difference between stopping someone and making them suffer and this episode knows it well by leaning into the latter. Mark is bloodthirsty and angry and above all else: tired of everyone else’s bullshit.

And that’s what makes this one linger. Not just the spectacle, but the cost. All in an episode everyone will most definitely be talking about.

All episodes of Invincible are available to stream on Prime. New episodes air on Wednesdays at midnight PST.

Underwater horror has always been one of the most effective kinds of fear. Maybe it comes from the influence of eldritch monsters like Cthulhu. Perhaps it’s just a general sense of dread of what lies below. Fear of the unknown is something innately human. Fear of what lies beneath is… something else.

Oni Press’ Estuary begins by leaning into that unease. From Tim Daniel and David “D. B.” Andry (Crush Depth, Morning Star), along with artwork by Maan House (Mine is a Long Lonesome Grave), Estuary: A Ghost Story #2 is a personal story mixing horror and personal history.

You’ve got Maris, a deep-diving marine archaeologist who’s clearly in over her head in this work-for-hire gig, along with Hunter, the flirty, larger-than-life boat captain. What starts as a routine dive turns into something ghastly. Something dangerous, something haunted, and something else entirely.

Here’s the synopsis courtesy of Oni’s Press Release, along with our exclusive first look at the book’s first few pages.

As Maris recovers from her first encounter with the ghosts that haunt the waves in the waters beneath the Mission at Point Arbués, her new team fills her in on the stories of unusual occurrences that have plagued its halls for decades... and the legend of the lost treasure supposedly tied to the spectral entity called the Lady in Lace.

As she searches for answers within the church, she learns a shocking truth about the nun who hired her and about her own connections to the mission . . .

Exclusive First-Look:

Estuary: A Ghost Story #2

Written by Tim Daniel and D. B. Andry

Illustrated by Maan House

Estuary: A Ghost Story #2 is available in stores beginning on May 6th, 2026.

Publisher: Oni Press (May 6, 2026)

Length: 32 pages

$4.99

If there was ever going to be a “fun filler episode” of Invincible this season, this would be it.

After everything Mark Grayson has undergone over the last few episodes, the show shifts gears and sends him somewhere unexpected: Hell. This is the episode that brings back Hellboy Damien Darkblood. All for what essentially becomes a supernatural side quest.

Why is it happening? Well, the underworld is in the middle of a revolution. Satan himself — voiced by one of my favorite persons to have ever interviewed, the groovy Bruce Campbell — is about to be overthrown by a powerful Vile named Volcanikka.

She’s leading an uprising with a dangerous goal: restoring her people and unleashing them back into the surface world, essentially ending all life as we know it.

Darkblood needs help stopping her, so he summons a hero. Hoping for Omni-Man, instead, he gets his closest of blood relatives, Mark Grayson.

And that mismatch becomes part of the episode’s charm.

Bruce Campbell is Satan

The biggest standout this week is easily Bruce Campbell as Satan. Campbell leans fully into the role in the best way possible, and hearing Campbell/Satan proudly scream, “I’m looking big. I’m looking mean. I’m looking hot. Ohhhh yeah!” is the ridiculous sort of fun that makes the episode.

The setting also gives the animation team a lot to play with. Hell is chaotic, fiery, and filled with massive action beats, making this one of the more visually fun episodes of the season. Let alone while listening to Slayer’s “Reign of Blood” as the entire episode gets metal.

That said, the episode also sneaks in a surprising amount of lore. Hell isn’t the ultimate evil humans imagine. Long ago, demons helped defeat ancient beings called the Vile—immortal, relentless horrors that once ruled existence. Demons now keep them imprisoned through eternal torment, which is how Hell earned its reputation in the first place.

A weird but fascinating twist on the mythology.

A Lesson for Mark

At its core, the episode is an introspective one, becoming another test for Mark.

Still struggling with the violence he’s been forced into this season, Mark questions why he keeps fighting and whether he’s becoming something he doesn’t want to be. Darkblood ends up serving almost as a reluctant mentor, pushing Mark to accept a difficult truth: sometimes being a hero means choosing the lesser evil.

Helping Satan reclaim the throne isn’t exactly heroic. But letting Volcanica release the Vile would be far worse.

So Mark makes the call.

And once again, he’s forced to cross a line.

It’s a smaller, stranger episode compared to the rest of the season, but it reinforces something Invincible keeps returning to: that the fights never really end. Every victory opens another door, every solved problem reveals something bigger waiting behind it.

Still, if we’re going to take a detour along the way, one with Bruce Campbell playing Satan isn’t a bad place to stop.

Hail to the king, baby.

All episodes of Invincible are available to stream on Prime. New episodes air on Wednesdays at midnight PST.

I just got out of Project Hail Mary, which was one of my most anticipated movies to watch this year for a reason. It’s got the second-best Rotten Tomatoes audience score in Sci-Fi history, second only to Godzilla Minus One.

It’s a family-friendly sci-fi ride about a nerdy but washed-up science teacher who becomes a reluctant hero with his alien rock monster arachnid best friend. And somehow? This movie stays grounded in terms of believability despite the absurdity of that premise.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie and Into the Spider-Verse), with a script from Drew Goddard (Netflix’s Daredevil), and an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Andy Weir (The Martian) who is basically our generation’s Michael Crichton (Westworld Jurassic Park), this is a general audience sci-fi movie you can take the whole family to that takes hard science concepts and makes them fun.

The setup is simple. Ryan Gosling plays a kids’ science teacher named Dr. Grace who wakes up alone in space with no memory. We soon learn he’s humanity’s only chance to stop an extinction-level event in which a microorganism is draining the sun of its heat energy, and the Earth will slowly freeze to death due to global cooling, crops and livestock failing, and, likely, global war against one another once resources run scarce.

Fair warning.

None of how bad things can get is conveyed well in the movie adaptation compared to the book (which you should read).

Yet, for the sake of keeping it kid-friendly, much of the “Oh my God, we’re all gonna die miserably!” is underplayed to the tune of “We need to save the planet!” Which is the most fictional part of this movie… Because we know damn well, most of the world’s leaders don’t care about saving the planet.

Anyway, much like The Martian, the film leans hard into being accessible compared to the source material. There’s a lot more action (and dancing), plus moments of character to build a lot of heart.

As a result, the tone of the film is lighter. More buddy comedy with a dash of science with accessiblity for a general audience; which, by the marketing and overall tone seen, seems to have been the goal: making science fun for kids (and it works).

There’s humor as Gosling plays the character as awkward, confused, and kind of like a small man out of his depth, especially for the scale of how big this project is, with the theme of the movie becoming one about being ‘Brave’ in the face of danger.

Whereas the book has more layers of nuance, this movie is good in that it stunningly leans into its visuals and playfulness. Once we learn about the Eridians, who are an alien race going through the same exact things humans are regarding their dying sun, the tone shifts and becomes mostly a tale about a man and his alien best friend working to save their worlds.

Played by a rock puppet.

Because yes, this is also heavily a story about Rocky: a tiny spider-rock monster alien. Rocky steals the movie acting as this generation’s E.T., at least, if E.T. were a brilliant engineer who could construct pretty much anything out of xenonite space metal. It’s awesome. And cool.

But here’s where it gets a little frustrating

The film sands down a lot of the harder science that made the book hit, and you can feel it. Whereas the book lived in its problem-solving, this movie simplifies things for accessibility, losing some of its culture and logic.

One perfect example?

One of my favorite parts of the book is the two of them learn each other’s languages. It rushed through in the movie and loses a key part of the story: that Rocky’s species bases their entire calculus on base 6 math?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. there is no 6. 7. 8. 9.

We humans?

We use base 10. 1-10 then 11, 12, etc.

Why does that matter?

Well, both species were counting the number of finger appendages on their hands just like their earliest respective ancestors. It created the basis for telling time and measuring distance. Pretty much the foundations for measuring quite literally everything in the world.

This is sort of huge and something utterly cool for kids, and even most adults, to know about because for those who don’t know...

This means all math stems from us counting the fingers on our hands

It also explains the structural engineering and cultural differences between Eridians versus humans and why their ships look the way they are. It’s one based on strings for sounds as their species have no eyes to see light and structures everything in base 6 mathematics.

Anyway, that’s just one of a sea of cool science facts lost in this movie. The same goes for how centrifugal force recreates gravity, a technique being explored in advanced space travel currently today and which you see a lot of in the spinning space ships throughout the movie, but isn’t explained.

Yet, perhaps the most important detail lost is how Astrophage even works. How it’s a threat to every star system and its surrounding planetary ecosystems, but also works as a fuel and an organism, eating energy from the sun to essentially fart out mass.

That’s kind of the tradeoff this movie makes across the board: clarity over depth.

Or like, why having a water-based energy source more powerful than a nuclear bomb would be both a world blessing and an incredibly scary curse to humanity.

Or how despite being brilliant engineers Eridians don’t understand the theory of relativity because they’re blind.

Again, all these changes and issues aren’t addressed to basically make the movie accessible for kids. Read the book then come back to the movie and you’ll enjoy it even better!

Consequentially, because the film cut a lot of why the science matters, one critique is that the stakes feel low back on Earth. Yes, the world is ending, but we never get into how it’s ending like in the book. How a minor fluctuation in climate change pretty much kills EVERYTHING at a certain point in time.

Or that the reason there is global collaboration and the need to launch Project Hail Mary right now… is because every second wasted means so many more are going to die. And die pretty miserably.

None of that’s said in the movie for the sake of keeping it friendly.

Still… It’s a good movie

And honestly, one that’s important as Hollywood doesn’t make enough films like The Martian or Arrival anymore. We need more original-feeling sci-fi that isn’t tied to a franchise, plus one, if it’s something that actually wants to teach you something.

That’s how you inspire the next scientists and we sort of need science right now more than ever given the state of… quite literally everything.

That alone makes it worth watching.