Last week, AHOY Comics announced a handful of returning titles for later this year, including Second Coming: Only Begotten Son and Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Blood. The publisher teased three more titles to be added to the lineup, and now they’ve revealed the remaining books they’ll be releasing this Fall and Winter. Joining the two previously-announced titles will be the return of hit series The Wrong Earth, the debut of Steel Cage “winner” Penultiman, and a brand-new project from Peter Milligan and Michael Montenat.
Let’s talk about that last one first: Happy Hour is the new Milligan and Montenat series, and it sounds fascinating. Launching on the Wednesday after election day here in the U.S., the series is set in a future America where happiness is mandatory:
In future America, being happy isn’t just a right—it’s the law. While the Joy Police brutally enforce the cheery code, two young people go on the run, searching for a haven of melancholy where they can safely bask in the blues.
That sounds perfectly Bradbury-esque (Bradburian? Fahrenheit 451-derful).
Penultiman, from Tom Peyer and Planet of the Nerds artist Alan Robinson, arrives in stores on October 7th, after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its originally-planned May launch. The first issue will feature covers by Robinson and Jamal Igle.
Back from the future—again! Penultiman, The Next-To-Last-Stage In Human Evolution, is the greatest, best-looking, and most admired super-hero in the world! So how can he stop hating himself? His android understudy, Antepenultiman, thinks he knows the answer! Created by Tom Peyer (THE WRONG EARTH) and Alan Robinson (PLANET OF THE NERDS). Featuring a variant cover by Jamal Igle (THE WRONG EARTH, Black). Resolicited from the Plague Times – all previous orders have been cancelled.
And speaking of Igle and Peyer, their series The Wrong Earth returns in January 2021. The Wrong Earth: Night & Day will finally bring Dragonflyman and Dragonfly together for the first time.
The stars of THE WRONG EARTH and DRAGONFLY & DRAGONFLYMAN return! Racing to prevent identical catastrophes that threaten the separate earths they inhabit, gritty Dragonfly and his campy doppelganger Dragonflyman follow the clues to a third earth, where they at last come face-to-face!
AHOY Comics has, since its debut, put out a consistently high-quality lineup of books, and these new offerings don’t look like they’ll change that pattern any time soon. I’m pleased to say I got two out of three of these right when I guessed what the three “tOp SeCrEt” titles on AHOY’s schedule were. That still leaves Peter Krause‘s unannounced project, so I guess there’s even more to look forward to.
In the meantime, keep your eyes later this year for those three new AHOY Comics books, plus Second Coming: Only Begotten Son and Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Blood, as they hit comic shops beginning in October.