We’ve been telling you about the big plans from new publisher Z2 Comics for a while now, including their launch of a line of periodical comics. The flagship title is Ian McGinty’s Welcome to Showside, a charming all-ages tale about Kit, a friendly little demon, and his pals and Kit’s desire to escape from the family business of destroying the world. McGinty, best known for his work on the Adventure Time and Steven Universe comics, says the book is “Hellboy meets Steven Universe,” an idea so genius I can’t believe no one came up with it before.
We have a few preview pages from the book as well as a look at Erin Hunting’s variant covers for Books a Million (via EW), which will form a wrap-around. There’s also a back up story in issue #1 by the excellent Carey Pietsch.
Welcome to Showside is also being adapted into an animated pilot, with Henry Rollins voicing one of the characters. McGinty has been doing the interview rounds and chatted with Graphic Policy about the series:
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make horror, the comics I really read a lot, accessible to an all-ages crowd. It ain’t easy, but I think the comic has managed to hit this area between horror and all-ages content, something I’m actually very proud of. There aren’t many comics in that realm. It’s also an issue of trusting your audience. I think kids are capable of handling and understanding much more than we give them credit for, and I wanted Welcome to Showside to have scary elements instead of being ALL rainbows and bubblegum. So I think the familiarity is from taking what I know about successful all-ages licensed properties, like Adventure Time or Bravest Warriors, and combining it with elements from horror comics like Hellboy and Alien and all that cool stuff.
Welcome to Showside #1 ships October 28th, just in time for Halloween. Diamond order number is AUG151857 and for #2 it is SEP151765.
