All this week The Beat is bringing readers exclusive Statix Press news leading up to San Diego Comic Con 2018. So far we’ve delivered a preview of the upcoming  McCay, an “invented biography” of seminal comic artist Windsor McCay slated for October, as well the first look at pages from Re-Mind issue 1 due out at the end of August.

Today we’ve got another exclusive for you. Statix Press has told The Beat they’re bringing the 2014 Joe Schuster award-winning graphic novel Wrath of Fantomas to the English-language market in January 2019. Wrath of Fantomas, which also netted the 2013 Prix at the Interpol’Art festival celebrating detective literature, is based on the popular series of novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. They’re rumored to have inspired everyone from surrealist author Guillaume Apollinaire to filmmaker Jean Cocteau.

Wrath of Fantomas sees the titular masked killer facing justice for his lurid crimes. From Statix:

The place? Paris. The year? 1911. The scene? An execution.

Fantômas, the most popular villain of French literature, the ruthless master of crime and terror in countless books, films, and serials, finally faces justice! Alas, the man of a hundred faces is determined not go to the grave alone… and his epitaph will be written in nightmares.

Penned by Olivier Bocquet, the book is illustrated by Canadian animator Julie Rocheleau, whose art most recently appeared in  About Betty’s Boob from BOOM! Studios. You can check out a preview of  the cover and interior art below.


WRATH OF FANTOMAS 
Writer Olivier Bocquet • Artist Julie Rocheleau
HC • FC • 168pp • $29.99 • On Sale Jan 15, 2019
ISBN 9781785868863