A comic book about a slasher bloodying up a horror convention amidst hundreds of cosplayers is nothing short of a dream come true for fans of the genre. It’s the perfect setup. A serial killer is free to move around a mass of people hiding behind masked costumes based on their favorite ultraviolent monsters. It’s like being a psycho kid in a candy store (the kind that stuffs sweets with razorblades). Writers Stephen Graham Jones and Josh Viola along with artist Ben Matsuya give readers precisely that in their three-part comic True Believers, about a slasher called Killr™ wreaking havoc in the Colorado Festival of Horror.
The Kickstarter campaign for issue #1 has already come and gone with great success, going well beyond the original funding goal. Now, it’s True Believers #2’s turn, and this time there’s a few guest stars making an appearance to make that convention feel even stronger. Chucky regular Devon Sawa is among them, accompanied by TRIVIUM’s Matt Heafy and characters from the fan favorite film Deathgasm (directed by Jason Lei Howden).
True Believers #2 takes place a year after the events of the first entry, more a complete sequel than a traditional second issue in a comic book series. Like the enigmatic Ghostface in every Scream movie after the first one, a new figure has taken over the Killr™ persona, promising more of the metafictional bloodshed that made issue #1 such a treat for slasher connoisseurs.
It’s no surprise that Master of Slashers Stephen Graham Jones is behind this series. Most of his work is based around a slasher of some sort, and by this point he’s tackled most every variation of it. The final installment of his Indian Lake trilogy, The Angel of Indian Lake, has just released and has already been praised by critics and readers alike as a fitting conclusion for a saga that contemplates Indigenous horror, morally complex violence, and the very tradition of the slasher from the eyes of one of fiction’s most formidable final girls.
True Believers #2 promises all the gore and bloodletting that one expects from the kind of story it tells, but it comes with something to say as well. Below you’ll find four pages of the upcoming sequel shared exclusively with The Beat. And if you’re interested in making the Killr™’s second run around the convention floor a reality, the Kickstarter campaign is now live.
Click here to access the True Believers #2 Kickstarter page.
