Dead Sky Publishing is building a formidable line of horror graphic novels that aren’t afraid to go dark and bloody for our entertainment. This coming fall, they’re releasing a new Splatter Western tale titled The Spine of the Land, put together by the team of Jason Krawcyzk, A. Shay Hahn, and Micah Myers.
Dead Sky has given The Beat a look at the graphic novel’s cover, illustrated by Andrew Barr. Here it is:
The Spine of The Land is being pitched as 3:10 to Yuma meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though I’d add a bit of Assault on Precinct 13 in there though not anchored to a single location. According to Dead Sky’s Instagram page,
“[The story’s set] in 1887 Louisiana. The mid-Atlantic railroad has been delayed due to a group of feral cannibals attacking the workforce. The charismatic Governor of the state will use any means necessary to continue his dominion. After capturing one of the feral folk, the Governor hires a meek sheriff to escort the brute back to his people and pay them to leave their homeland. What follows is a tale of brutality, crime, and human tenacity.”
Barr’s cover does an excellent job of capturing the violence readers will get to witness once they get their hands on the book. A cannibal features prominently, channeling a bit of pro wrestling energy based on in his look and pose (reminiscent of WWE’s Mankind). The hooded gunmen on the right hint at a future shootout between those who think the cannibal should be hanged rather than used as a bargaining chip and the sheriff that’s tasked with escorting the flesh eater.
With books like The Case of the Bleeding Wall, Consensual Violence, and The Girl, The Priest, and the Devil, Dead Sky is proving to be one of the best options for horror comics in the business. On the prose end, their latest book, Wretch, has been getting good reviews from both critics and readers alike. They’re taking to social media to express their outright shock at the things that happen in it.
The Spine of The Land is slated for release in October of this year.
