Out Now: Catacomb of Torment #2
Added 2025-08-22 23:05:55 +0000 UTCThe latest issue of the latest EC Comics/Oni Press anthology features my first new comics work in a number of years. My script for the story "Red Blend" was illustrated by Lukas Ketner, colored by Francesco Segala with Sabrina del Grosso and lettered by Tyler Smith c/o Richard Starkings. it's an eight-page horror story that I hope reads as in the classic EC tradition without feeling like an homage or a retread. The main cover is by Ariel Olivetti (see below). There are multipl variant covers including one by Lukas Ketner and an EC homage by Jay Stephens.
I'll be posting more pages along with the script in a few weeks for backers at the $5 tier and up. You can pick up Catacomb of Torment #2 at better and creepier comic shops (creepy in a psoiive way, not the Joe's Fantasy World way) and online at whoever the hell sells these things. The latter goes for the digital copies.
I went on the Oni Press website to provide you folks a link to the issue...but couldn't find it! Womp womp. Only the first issue. I wrote my editors and hopefully #2 will be added to the site asap.
If anyone has already picked up the comic, my sincere and heartfelt thanks. I hope you liked it, and our story, of course. Lukas and I will be back in November with our second story, "Necronomicomicon", appearing in Catacomb of Torment #5. And I'll be doing another signing at JHU Comics on Staten Island when that comes out. Huzzah!
Comments
I'm glad you liked it! I'm a huge M.R. James fan but I think it's coincidental in that the Jamesian build and "whallop" (as they call the entity reveal on A Podcast to the Curious -- https://www.mrjamespodcast.com ) is somewhat similar to the set-up and twist or ironic payoff in the traditional E.C. comic. I would love to try to do something more along the lines of James or E.F. Benson or L.P. Hartley in a comic, but I think such a story needs room to breathe, more open pages for setting and atmosphere and a quieter pace, and I don't think E.C. is the best venue for such a thing between story length and overall vibe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy Necronomicomicon in November.
Evan Dorkin
2025-08-30 22:49:00 +0000 UTCI've had the title in my notebook for a while now, since working on stories for a 12-issue anthology series I was hoping to put together. At some point before pitching the story to Oni I searched for the title online and didn't find anything matching. I honestly assumed someone would have already used it. Weirdly, I just did a search and found a song by that name on Bandcamp that was posted in early 2024. I don't know why I didn't see it before, I really did try to be thorough and it's the only instance I could find. Luckily it wasn't a book or comic, I wouldnt want anyone to think I ripped their title off. "Necronomicon" is used for at least two conventions (spelled differently) as it turns out, I was aware of Providence but ot one in Florida.
Evan Dorkin
2025-08-30 22:38:07 +0000 UTC"Necronomicomicon" is so good I cant believe I've never heard it begore
Jade
2025-08-29 07:25:27 +0000 UTCGot my copy here in the UK. Loved it. There's a beautifully paced growing-dread / realisation to it. I dislike saying one creation is like another creation really, but there's a slight M.R. James feel to the story in the way that you feel it unfurling slowly around you, pulling you in, despite it being quite brief. If that makes sense. My point being - it's superb and I'm excited for #5.
Adam Codrington
2025-08-25 07:11:05 +0000 UTCThx for picking it up. For me the journey was more important than the twist, the texture and detail was important as well as having two "wallops" instead of one (production and consumption). "Chekhov's aerating shoes" and the squashed grape panel kind of tip things. It's hard to flip a switch in 8 pages. Re-reading the catalogue I found the tightness (or lack thereof) of the journey is usually more interesting reading than the punchline, which often hangs on the visuals. And I think our visuals worked. Fun facts, one panel's a nod to Johnny Craig's "Star Light, Star Bright" and another to Feldstein and Davi's "Foul Play" (although less obvious, but for me it was). Also: one of my rejected pitches was an EC take on the Wm Gaines-congress-Wertham-comics code situation. I really wanted to discuss how some of EC's rival publishers wanted the comics code as a way to dismantle their competitor(s). "Wholesome" publishers being cutthroats. I did think the idea of a suicide/living dead "Gaines" gruesomely getting revenge on some kiddie publishers et al was't really going to get approved, but it didn't hurt to try.
Evan Dorkin
2025-08-23 03:19:27 +0000 UTCPicked up my copy yesterday at Comics Experience in SF! Excited to see it the rack.
David L Smay
2025-08-23 02:09:09 +0000 UTCI like the cover variant shown here over the grotesque main brick cover (I imagined the ghost of Bill Gaines being called in to testify to a congressional committee about it) but I know that's not your department. Your story was enjoyable and very much in the classic tradition (though with a bit too predictable an outcome - the foreshadowing is as subtle as Chekhov's gun, pre-loaded, aimed, and cocked) but fun on its own nonetheless. I will pick up more of these with your work in them if you keep getting to write them. I also like the somewhat standard-classic grid layout with modern touches like the full bleed (heh-heh) edges, the Leroy lettering, the tastefully moody coloring and I especially appreciate the lack of sex/T&A and profanity that (to my mind) ruined the effectiveness of the comics code un-approved EC tribute comics of the last 40-50 years. Way to go! I hope to see a lot more.
Michael Grabowski
2025-08-23 00:24:21 +0000 UTCSweet, thank you very much!
Evan Dorkin
2025-08-22 23:41:50 +0000 UTCI'll be getting mine next week. Can't wait!
Menachem Tzvi Perlow
2025-08-22 23:39:11 +0000 UTC
