TKO Studios has announced their upcoming third wave of titles. TKO wave 3 features a trio of books, all from seasoned creators including writers Steve Niles, Steve Orlando, and Alex Paknadel and artists Szymon Kudranski, Ricardo López Ortiz, Nil Vandrell, and more.
The breakdown of new books, and their descriptions from a series of tweets by TKO, is as follows:
- Lonesome Days, Savage Nights, co-written by Niles and Salvatore Simeone, with art by Kudranski and lettering by Tom Mauer. The title is described as “[a] supernatural crime story about a private detective with one hell of a trick up his sleeve and a monster under his skin.”
- The Pull, written by Orlando, illustrated by López Ortiz, colored by Triona Farrell, and lettered by Mauer. The sci-fi series “asks the ultimate question: What would you do if you only had six days left to live – give up or fight back?”
- Redfork, a “dark horror tale” written by Paknadel, illustrated by Vendrell, colored by Giulia Brusco, and lettered by Ryan Ferrier. The series follows “an ex-con who returns to his hometown and realizes something sinister is draining the very life from the town.”
While not specified by TKO, it’s expected that all three series, as with all previous TKO titles, will be available in three formats: digitally, as boxed sets of single issues, and as collected editions. TKO co-founder Tze Chun shared a photo of what appear to be the single issue sets (or could they be slipcased collections?):
https://twitter.com/thetzechun/status/1309223639187968000?s=20
This third wave of titles is one fewer than the previous two waves, but as with previous waves, offerings in TKO wave 3 are fairly diverse in genre, from crime to horror to sci-fi. Less diverse is the gender breakdown of the creators, with only two women – Farrell and Brusco – among the creative teams. TKO drew some criticism with their first wave of book in regards to gender equity among creators, and the publisher appeared to have taken steps to address that with their second wave, even putting out one title with an all-female creative team.
Wave 3 of TKO Studios titles will be up for pre-order on TKO’s website on October 16th, with a release date in early November.