Maverick, the young adult imprint from Mad Cave Studios, has announced a new graphic novel for release this winter and The Beat has all the details. In December, Queen Kodiak will hit. shelves from writer Christopher Greenslate, illustrator Riccardo Faccini, colorist Dearbhla Kelly, and letterer Justin Birch.
Queen Kodiak follows 17-year-old Joey King, who moves in with her father, an Alaskan state trooper, after her mother’s death. There, she befriends a legendary grizzly bear who turns out to be the only cub of a millennia-old kaiju. As you might expect, this sets off a chain of wild events.
Here’s the full synopsis:
After the death of her mother, an embattled 17 year old moves in with her father on Alaska’s Kodiak island where she befriends a legendary 3000 lb. bear. Unfortunately, the bear’s inevitable capture upsets a millenia-old kaiju grizzly named Queen Kodiak, who will destroy everything in her path to collect her cub.
Following in the massive footsteps of legends like Godzilla and King Kong, comes QUEEN KODIAK, a colossal, super-charged Kodiak grizzly bear… one who survived from the ice-age and whose been irreversibly enhanced by a mysterious geo-thermal energy pulsing in the unknown depths of an Alaskan ice cave. And although QUEEN KODIAK’s been asleep for thousands of years, melting ice and subsequent tectonic activity has disturbed her hibernation. And in her debut graphic novel, she wakes up to find her only cub missing.
But as much as we want to meet her and watch her wreck shop on the pacific northwest (sorry Seattle), our story actually centers on JOEY FOX, an embattled 17-year-old girl, and natural empath, who befriends Queen Kodiak’s cub after a tectonic shift in her own life — the recent passing of her mother. As a result, Joey’s been sent to Alaska’s Kodiak island to live with the man who left them ten years ago, her state trooper father. In many ways it’s a story about how families survive overwhelming odds.
The Beat can reveal exclusive interior art from Queen Kodiak, seen below.
“I’ve been pre-grieving the death of my mother since I was 15. That’s how old I was when she was diagnosed with Leukemia and Lymphoma,” said Greenslate in the announcement. “This book is me shining a light on my fears about losing her. Confronting the monster of grief in an attempt to soften the inevitable blow. So, in this story we’re with Joey Fox, an outcast kid who’s emotionally raw and terribly stubborn, who finds herself grieving the loss of her mother while being forced to move to Kodiak Island in Alaska to live with her estranged father. In doing so, she feels painfully alone until she befriends a legendary Kodiak grizzly. But then his life is in jeopardy and our story becomes a high octane escape to outrun the wrath of his kaiju sized mother, QUEEN KODIAK.”
Artist Faccini said, “Working on Queen Kodiak was, from the very beginning, a lot of fun. From the creation of the character designs I became passionate about them and their place in the story. The atmospheres of the story are exciting and it was also a surprise for me to see the evolution of the protagonist throughout her dramatic story. Queen Kodiak is able to combine drama, fantasy and action in a mix that totally interested me… a film series based on Queen Kodiak would definitely be a blast!”
Queen Kodiak will be available everywhere books are sold on December 9. Pre-orders are available now.
