Coming Soon: Catacomb Of Torment #2

Some August solicitations have been posted online, so I guess I can finally let you folks know that I've written an 8-page story for the revived EC Comics line published by Oni Press. My story will be in the second issue of a new title, Catacomb of Torment, which will ship on August 20th. The artist illustrating the story is Lukas Ketner, who has worked on Witch Doctor, Count Crowley and other comics.

I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with the script. I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, although the process was a little rough because of my writing ring rust. It's been a while since I've written a full script for anything. But in the end I think it came out pretty well, and it has a little more of the EC flavor than some of the stories I've seen so far. Largely because they let me use the horror host throughout the pages rather than just in the opener. I've been binging the original horror comics to get in the mood, I'm working on a second script so I'm still chugging along. Finished Haunt of Fear, most of The Vault of Horror (Johnny Craig might actually be my favorite EC horror creator, even over Jack Davis) and started on Tales From the Crypt last night. Hopefully I've done right by the originals.

When the EC revival was announced I was kind of hoping I'd be asked to contribute. As usual, I didn't consider asking if anyone there would be interested in having me on board. I'm still bad about that sort of thing. I completely forgot that Sierra Hahn was the Editor-In-Chief at Oni, which meant I actually had an "in" if I put some proactive effort into things. Sierra was a co-editor on Beasts of Burden for years while at Dark Horse. Anyway, when I got the e-mail from Sierra Hahn asking me to pitch story ideas I was really pleased...until I realized I had to come up with some story ideas. I raided my Blackwood/Horror notebook, found a few that made sense to me, typed up four plots, and sent them off.

I wrote them after a month because I hadn't heard from them. Basically, Oni was backed up with pitches and start-up logistics on the line and all the stories had to go through the EC estate folks. So everything would take a while. I didn't hear from them for months, and because of the way I am, I figured I bombed out and no one wanted to tell me because they felt bad about it (it's happened before, actually). Long story shortened, I heard back almost a year later, they wanted to do the story that became "Red Blend". Soon after I had another story approved. I'm working on the second script for a deadline in June. I haven't heard about the other two, but I hope I can continue to pitch. I've been wanting to write comics for a horror anthology for a long time and this is a nice showcase for that (I still harbor the idea of writing a series of 12 single-issue stories with different artists for each one).

Here's the solicitation copy from Oni Press:

CATACOMB OF TORMENT #2
WRITTEN BY MATT BORS, EVAN DORKIN & JEREMY LAMBERT
ART BY KANO, LUKAS KETNER & FABIANA MASCOLO
COVER A BY ARIEL OLIVETTI
COVER B BY LUKAS KETNER
EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY LUKAS KETNER
ARCHIVE EDITION (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTÍN

EC’S BLOODY NEW ONGOING SERIES TWISTS THE KNIFE AS THE SUMMER OF FEAR CONTINUES!

Welcome back to the Tormentor’s lair . . . where each crank of the rack tightens your shackled limbs and brings even more taut tales of mayhem and murder spilling forth like so much viscera! This month: Full-blooded writers Matt Bors (Toxic Avenger), Evan Dorkin (Beasts of Burden), and Jeremy Lambert (Doom Patrol) join steel-nerved artists Kano (Action Comics), Lukas Ketner (Count Crowley), and Fabiana Mascolo (Catwoman) to navigate the catacombs by torchlight. . . . We hope they can find their way back out, hehehe!

ON SALE AUGUST 20th, 2025 | $4.99 | 32 PGS. | FC

Images above: Archive Edition variant cover from Catacomb of Torment #2, art by Patricia Martin. Variant covers by Lukas Ketner and homage variant cover by Jay Stephens (the homage is to Al Feldstein's cover to Shock Suspenstories #9. The cover story is the well-known "Carrion Death" by Al Feldstein, William Gaines and artist Reed Crandall).