Linocut Sketch Variants for the Exquisite Corpses Launch Party

Though it’s only May, Exquisite Corpses might be the comic of the year. On day one it sold out on a distributor level with a second print immediately announced. The premise is incredible—it’s like Fornite meets The Hunger Games meets The Purge with Steven King-esque elements. And it will be a card game next year and every cover C will be polybagged with a card so you can begin to build your deck ahead of the game’s release.

Main Cover of Exquisite Corpses #1

Tiny Onion collaborated with Revenge Of (the premier comic shop in LA that is part comic shop, part pinball arcade, and part comic events space) for the Exquisite Corpses release party this past Friday. And I had the honor to attend and interview the creative team. And! I gifted the Corpse Crew and Tiny Onion team some linocut prints of, arguably the mascot of the series, The Fox Mask Killer.

Blurry screenshot of our interview to be released soon!

First of all, what is Exquisite Corpses about? Every five years on Halloween the thirteen richest families in America play a game. Each family chooses a killer to compete in a battle royale and the family that wins will rule the United States for the next half decade. Some killers are unpredictable serial killers while some are calculated professional assassins, but each killer has a unique design and theme—which has made fans root for their favorite killer before the comic even dropped. The co-creator and lead artist of the series Michael Walsh did a phenomenal job visually crafting each of their identities and making every killer iconic and memorable—and cool, this comic has a majorly cool factor to it. Each killer is allowed one type of weapon which is drawn randomly by picking a card—yes see, the card game next year is all making sense! The arena that these killers will be playing in is a small town called Oak Valley, whose citizens will also have to fight to survive the night—similar to the Purge, though with no prep or warning for the oncoming slaughter.

The collaborative process for this series is groundbreaking in the comic book industry. It has been described as a D&D game meets a writers room. James Tynion IV and Michael Walsh created the series, each character, wrote and illustrated the first issue, and crafted the card game. Then they invited an incredible group of creators to play the early stages of the game to see which killer would win at their writers summit—they played the game to write the story! They then passed along the creative responsibilities to other artists and writers. This is the Corpse Crew: Adam Gorham (Hellhunters), Becca Carey (Absolute Wonder Woman), Che Grayson (Dark Spaces: Good Deeds), Claire Roe (Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special), Gavin Fullerton (The Closet), Jordie Bellaire (Redlands), Marianna Ignazzi (Catwoman), Pornsak Pichetshote (The Good Asian), Tyler Boss (You’ll Do Bad Things), and Valentine De Landro (Bitch Planet).

Tiny Onion did a phenomenal job of creating hype for the launch of this series. They revealed each killer one by one leading up to the series debut on May 14th—and The DeMonster actually announced two killers: Layla Blaze and Slater. The marketing for Exquisite Corpses made fans even more excited for the launch of this incredible creator-owned series from Tiny Onion, published by Image Comics. Rooting for your favorite killer and predicting who will win feels like watching sports and rooting for your favorite team—especially with these “March Madness” style brackets at the end of each issue.

I had the opportunity to interview the majority of the Exquisite Corpses creative team aka The Corpse Crew before the party. As a special thank you for creating an incredible comic and taking the time to be interviewed on camera—I made some prints to give to both the creative team and the Tiny Onion team. I have a video below of their reactions:

Why a linocut? The night before I was staring at two blank Exquisite Corpses sketch variants toying with the idea of sketching something for Tynion and Walsh to give to on camera. Then I saw my linoleum/rubber carving blocks laying on the corner of my desk and it hit me—I should make a linocut and print it on the variants. I have never seen linocut sketch variants before and the process of meticulously and delicately hand carving a stamp felt extra special. Oftentimes art isn’t only about the outcome but the process of making the art itself. There is something I find beautiful about all of the tiny imperfections you often see when hand carving something. In a world where generative AI is regrettably on the rise, I take pride in all the things that make my art human. Every cut that may not be perfect brings my linocut prints to life in a personable and real way.

After stamping the two variants for the co-creators Tynion and Walsh, I hand printed a handful of tiny prints to give to the rest of the team. Each one is unique in its own way. I did a layer of pink watercolor under the majority of the prints and lined up the linocut over it since you can’t use watercolor over a water based ink. Each pink was different since I was mixing the pinks myself every few prints. Some have blood splatter and some don’t. And every print is different with how the black ink on the stamp took to the paper. The really fun part for me was allowing people to choose which print they wanted and seeing their reactions.

Linocuts are actually my latest ADHD hobby so to speak. While I do have a background in art I don’t have much experience with linocuts. I paint digitally as well as with acrylics and watercolor and sculpt from time to time. I remember doing this once before in highschool but what really sparked my interest was the arts and crafts section at the Renaissance Faire this year. I try to do a new craft every year and when I saw that this was being offered at the faire—I knew I had to give it a go! The experience inspired me to buy my own tools and materials and try it out on my own. So this was my third time using this medium and I absolutely adore it and plan to do more sketch variants in the future.

The Tiny Onion x Revenge of Exquisite Corpses release party was one of the best comic book launch parties—if not the best—that I have been to. The Tiny Onion team and Revenge Of created a stunning party for both the creative team and fans to celebrate and honor this incredible story. Harley Salbaka, the Community and Events manager at Tiny Onion, revealed during our on camera interview that they actually brought to life one of the locations in the book called The Pit for guests to interact with at the release party! Comic books deserve to be celebrated on such a large scale—and once again it feels like cheering for your favorite sports team which is something I thought I would never experience as somebody who doesn’t keep up with sports. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Exquisite Corpses and Tiny Onion in general, they are doing industry changing things. Congrats on Exquisite Corpses issue 1! (Way more Exquisite Corpses content coming soon.)