Titan Comics has announced Black Star, a gothic fantasy series written by Kristin Kreuk, Peter Mooney, and Eric Putzer, with art by Joe Bocardo (Nightwalkers, The Hexiles). The five-issue series, described as being both horrifying and humorous, is set in early 19th century Winnipeg, and follows a man who uncovers a magical conspiracy. It marks the first comic from actors Kreuk and Mooney, and screenwriter Putzer (Burden of Truth).
Amidst skirmishes between two warring factions in the early nineteenth-century fur trade, Dashiell Carlyle discovers he has magical abilities… and that he’s not alone. Thrust into a secret order with designs to use their magic to build a new and better world, Dashiell discovers that their utopia may come at a horrific cost.
Kreuk, who is probably still best known to comic book readers for playing Lana Lang on Smallville, shares “Black Star was born while Peter, Eric, and I were filming Burden of Truth in Winnipeg. We were inspired by the city’s lore and, because we worked so well together, began spending our spare time on set (and then, for years afterwards) developing our own take on the history and magic we imagined pulsing beneath its surface, shaping the rhythms of the city and the battles raging just beyond our view.”
Mooney, who’s previously written short films, adds, “Sometimes people come to my hometown and they can’t see past its rough edges or inhospitable weather. But it was clear Kristin and Eric could see right into the strangeness that makes Winnipeg so unique. This isn’t so much an alternative history, but an omitted chapter that’s been lost to time. It’s bizarre and fantastical and entirely imagined — but it goes a long way towards explaining why the city is how it is today.”
Putzer also says, “There’s an intimacy to comics that no other form quite achieves; the reader controls the rhythm, the breath, the revelation. In a story about power and human nature, we felt that intimacy necessary to make the reader an active part of the exchange.”
Joe Bocardo states, “For a comic book artist, working on a series as ambitious and well-written as Black Star is a gift. But if you also work on it with a talented and friendly team that gives you creative freedom, then it’s not a gift; it’s a privilege.”
Editor Jake Devine rounds out the press release, saying, “Set in the eerie, snow-blanketed wasteland of early 19th Century Winnipeg, this is magic as you’ve never seen it before. Hopeful yet bleak, miraculous yet insidious, and only time will tell if the prize is worth the cost. Readers are going to be swept away by Joe Bocardo’s mesmerising artwork as it envelops them in a story filled with awe and tragedy.”
Issue #1 will be released on July 29. You can check out an unlettered sneak peek at various pages below in the meantime.
