When EC Comics returns via Oni Press in July 2024 with Epitaphs from the Abyss, the line of comics will welcome a trio of new horror hosts. The sinister storytellers ready to tell twisted tales are the Grave-Digger, the Tormentor, and the Grim Inquisitor.
The characters were designed by Dustin Weaver (Avengers) and they will make their first full appearance in the double-sized, 40-page first issue of Epitaphs from the Abyss on July 24. Weaver also provided a horror host variant cover for their debut.
Grave-Digger will serve as the main host on Epitaphs, telling stories of murder and ill fortune that befell the residents of his cemetery. The Tormentor is a one-eyed butcherer who likes to torture victims with a variety of tools. The Grim Inquisitor is a mad monk obsessed with keeping his secret sect running and only fears the Supreme Inquisitor.
“Usually a big part of designing characters is costuming, but in looking back at the original Tales From the Crypt comics, it’s clear that the most important and defining features of the horror hosts are their ghoulish faces,” Weaver said. “It’s all about the faces, and with these modern host designs I wanted to carry on that tradition. Making sure the faces were suitably fiendish, properly cruel, and the right amount of unseemly was key, but there’s also an effort here to go a step further and bring some more thought and characterization to their costuming and physicality as well. Ultimately, it’s just such a treat to draw characters so unabashedly wicked.”
“Crafted from the dead center of depravity and delight, these new horror hosts are primed and ready to assume their roles as storytellers,” William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. Executive Director Corey Mifsud said. “All three characters honor the creepily comical spirit of EC, but contribute uniquely twisted points of views that will surely keep the reader up at night!”
Epitaphs from the Abyss #1 features stories by Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), J. Holtham (Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale), and Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn) with art by Jorge Fornes (Rorschach), Phil Hester (Family Tree), Peter Krause (Irredeemable), and Vlad Legostaev (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
Cover artists joining Weaver on the first issue are Lee Bermejo (Batman: Damned), Andrea Sorrentino (Gideon Falls) with Dave Stewart (Hellboy), Jay Stephens (Dwellings), and Rian Hughes (The Multiversity).
