It’s been over a year since superstar comic creator James Tynion IV announced he would be scaling back his work at DC Comics, and superhero comics in general, after signing a creator-owned deal at Substack. Today the prolific writer dropped some major news on his official newsletter, announcing a comic book publishing line at Dark Horse Comics that will feature works previously published on Substack as well as new material from his Tiny Onion Studios.
As Tynion told THR, discussions with Dark Horse began earlier this year, and the publisher seemed like a natural home for him.
“I started picturing an ad for Blue Book in the back pages of an issue of Hellboy, and something just clicked for me. Dark Horse is home to some of the best creator owned comics that have ever been published, and it’s a real honor to join their ranks of creative talent.”
Tynion’s first book published through Dark Horse will be Blue Book, with artist Michael Avon Oeming and letterer Aditya Bidikar. The series “focuses on encounters with aliens and the supernatural, with the first series centering on Betty and Barney Hill, who in the 1960s said they were adbucted by aliens.” Blue Book #1 arrives in print on Feb. 22, 2023.
The next Tiny Onion book, The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos, is a series created by Tynion but written by Tate Brombal, with art by Isaac Goodhart, colors by Kurt Michael Russell, and letters by Aditya Bidikar. The title “centers on the lonely teen mad scientist, Christopher Chaos. When the cute boy at high school turns out to be a deadly creature, Christopher finds himself pitted in a world of monsters, heroes, and a cult of hunters out to kill them all.” The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #1 hits stores on June 7, 2023.
Tynion is just the latest comic creator to find a home at Dark Horse. Eric Powell brought his Albatross Funnybooks line including The Goon to the publisher. Likewise, Brian Michael Bendis‘ Jinxworld made a similar move from DC to Dark Horse, and Matt Kindt‘s Flux House and Kevin Smith‘s Secret Stash Press have both launched with the publisher this year.
As Tynion teased, there is more to come:
“Blue Book and Christopher Chaos are just the beginning. There’s a whole universe of characters and concepts around the Christopher Chaos title I’m hoping that Tate, Isaac and I get to explore in our time there. Beyond that, there are so many stories in the ‘True Weird’ genre that I think are ripe to be told in the comics form. And that’s not counting all of the fun we’ve got in store for readers in the pages of Blue Book itself. We’ll be deciding title by title what makes sense to debut first in print, and what will make a fun addition to the comics I debut in my Substack newsletter.”
