EC: Epitaphs from the Abyss Vol. 2 (2)

Welcome back to the Grave-Digger's cemetery on the edge of the endless, black ABYSS that awaits us all. . . . Some sooner than others! Every tombstone tells a tale. . . . These are your EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS!

From the immortal EC Comics, prepare yourselves for all-new stories of fatalistic spectacle—told with wanton disregard for moral standards or public decency by masters of splatter de spectacular: Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), Joshua Hale Fialkov (Echoes), Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn), Andrea Sorrentino (Gideon Falls), Alexandre Tefenkgi (The Good Asian), Kano (Gotham Central), Leomacs (Rogues) Matt Kindt (BRZRKR), and many more surprise guests inscribing moribund epitaphs in so much funerary stone!

Collecting Epitaphs from the Abyss #5-8.

Cullen Bunn is the writer of comic books such The Sixth Gun, Shadow Roads, The Damned, and Helheim for Oni Press. He has also written titles including Harrow County (Dark Horse), Uncanny X-Men, and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe (Marvel). Cullen claims to have worked as an alien autopsy specialist, rodeo clown, pro wrestling manager, and sasquatch wrangler. He has fought for his life against mountain lions and performed on stage as the world's youngest hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime and he'll tell you all about it.

Chris Condon is the low-down dirty scoundrel behind the ongoing Image Comic series That Texas Blood and its acclaimed Wild West spinoff, The Enfield Gang Massacre, both with artist Jacob Phillips. He waded deep into bayou waters to adapt Barry Gifford's Night People for Oni Press and has not been the same since.

Joshua Hale Fialkov is the creator (or co-creator, depending) of graphic novels, including Elk's Run, The Bunker, The Life After (all from Oni Press); Punks and Echoes (from Image, and KING (from Jet City Comics). He also served as a writer on the Emmy Award Nominated animated film Afro Samurai: Resurrection, and as Executive Producer of the cult hit LG15: The Resistance web series. He's written for NBC's Chicago Med, MAX’s Young Justice, and Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender. Joshua grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, went to college in Boston, where he got a BFA in writing and directing for the stage and screen, and then worked in the New England film industry, until finally deciding to move to Los Angeles to do it properly. He lives with his wife, author Christina Rice, their daughter,  and their dogs, Cole and Olaf (12 Monkeys and Frozen, respectively).

J. Holtham is an American screenwriter, best known for his work on TV shows such as Cloak and Dagger, Jessica Jones, and Supergirl. He recently broke into Marvel Comics with Bishop- War College, and is bringing back fan favorite nineties character, Night Thrasher, for his first solo series in 30 years.

Matt Kindt is a Harvey Award-winning and NYT Best-Selling writer and artist of comics and graphic novels. His work includes MIND MGMT, BRZRKR (with Keanu Reeves), Bang!, Eniac, Revolver, 3 Story, Super Spy, 2 Sisters, and Pistolwhip. He has been nominated for four Eisner Awards and three Harvey Awards (and won once). His work has been published in French, Spanish, Italian, and German. The author lives in St. Louis, MO, with his wife and Dept H. collaborator, the colorist and artist Sharlene Kindt.

Stephanie Phillips is an American writer known for comics and graphic novels such as Harley Quinn, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Sensational Wonder Woman, and The Butcher of Paris. Her stories and comics have appeared with DC Comics, AfterShock Comics, Dark Horse, Oni Press, Top Cow/Image Comics, Heavy Metal, and more. Stephanie also holds a PhD in English.

Matthew Rosenberg is the award-winning, powerfully handsome, shockingly clever, and painfully modest writer of comics such as What's The Furthest Place From Here?, 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, and We Can Never Go Home. He has also written a lot of comics about angry people in tights, such as Uncanny X-Men, The Punisher, Hawkeye Freefall, DC vs. Vampires, Task Force Z, and The Joker. Weirdly, he once co-wrote an album with a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. He was born and raised in New York City, where he can still not be seen.

Tim Seeley is one of those “slash” people…a writer-slash-artist. He has drawn a number of different comic book series including G.I JOE, HALLOWEEN, WILDCATS and EXSANGUINE. His writing work includes NY TIMES bestselling Hack/Slash, Grayson, Batman Eternal, The Art Of Masters of the Universe, and the critically acclaimed Revival. He resides in Chicago, Illinois and works at Four Star Studios where he is never far from his 80s action figure collection.

Joanne Starer has been described as “witty,” “hilarious,” “thoughtful,” and “gassy.” All of these things are true. Leaving behind a career as an accomplished editor, Joanne dove headfirst into writing in 2018. Now she spreads her unique brand of comedy with a conscience across a wide spectrum of themes, including pro-wrestling, the Holocaust, abortion, and modern romance. Her work can be found at most major comic publishers, and occasionally somewhere surprising–like your next visit to the Smithsonian Museum. Outside of her writing pursuits, she has served on the board of the Editorial Freelancer’s Association and holds a Master’s in Media Studies as well as a certificate in Digital Film Editing. Joanne owned and operated a women’s wrestling promotion out of Pennsylvania back in 2002, championing equality in pro-wrestling a decade before it became a nationwide trend. Originally from New York, Joanne now resides in Vienna, Austria, with one very demanding cat and too many action figures to count.

Jordan Thomas hails from the South of England but is currently living in Valencia, Spain. His first published comics work was the 1920s postwar, farm-based horror series Frank At Home On The Farm. Since then he has written a sci-fi western, The Man From Maybe, for Oni Press, and the alien world crime story Weird Work at Image Comics. He likes dogs, swimming, and swimming with dogs.

 

Charlie Adlard was born August 1966 in the town of Shrewsbury, England and, having moved away to study film and video at art college, eventually moved back and still resides there today. Before moving back to Shrewsbury, he spent a brief stint in London, finding out that the BA he’d earned at art college was pretty useless in getting a job in the film industry, and, after failing to set the world alight playing the drums in a rock band, eventually settled on the “third” option—which was comics. An option he finally realized should have been number one right from the beginning. After spending two years back in Shrewsbury working on a portfolio, he eventually found his first work on the Judge Dredd Megazine in 1992 and hasn’t looked back since.

Tyler Crook is a comic book artist and illustrator. For over two decades, he has worked as a comics creator, artist, and 3D modeler in the video game industry. Released in 2011, Petrograd was Tyler’s first published comic and earned Tyler the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award. Since then, he has worked on dozens of comics titles including B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth, Witchfinder, Bad Blood, and The Sixth Gun. In 2016, Harrow County, the horror comic he created with Cullen Bunn, was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best New Series, and his Comixology Original book, Stone King, was nominated for Best Digital Comic in 2019. Tyler lives in rural Oregon with his wonderful spouse and many terrible pets

Kano is the pseudonym of Spanish comic book artist Jose Ángel Cano López. Kano began his career at the age of 13, editing Spanish-language comics fanzines. At 15, he was already doing layouts and design work for Planeta-DeAgostini. Kano is a founding member of the Spanish magazine about comics, Krazy Comics, as well as the Phoenix Studio, which provided design, illustration, and publishing services and was eventually merged with Camaleón Ediciones, a publishing house that Kano worked for in his early days. He has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics. He worked on a long run of Action Comics, including the “Emperor Joker” storyline, as well as Gotham Central and Swamp Thing. He worked on Daredevil, Iron Fist, Man Thing, and Beta Ray Bill Godhunter for Marvel, as well as others.

Leomacs is an Italian comic book artist based in Rome, Italy. In Italy, Leomacs has worked extensively for Sergio Bonelli Editore drawing Tex and Dylan Dog. For DC Comics, he has recently collaborated on Lucifer and the seven-part Hill House Comics thriller Basketful of Heads written by Joe Hill. He has drawn the French graphic novel The Invisible Mountain, written by Pierre Makyo and Frédéric Richaud, published by Delcourt. Leomacs and Riccardo La Bella collaborated on the graphic novel Apprendre à maîtriser son destin, Mémoire Vive written by Pierre Makyo for Glénat édition. Leomacs has collaborated as a storyboard artist with Colingwood & Co. for the animated series Horrid Henry. He has also realized storyboards and animated sequences for the film Nessuno mi troverá directed by Egidio Eronico.

David Lapham began his career in the comic industry at the age of twenty working at Valiant Comics learning his craft illustrating and helping to create many original titles, including Shadowman, Harbinger and Rai. He left Valiant to work at Defiant Comics where he co-created Warriors Of Plasm with Jim Shooter. David turned his back on the superhero genre in 1995 to co-found the independent publishing company, El Capitan Books, which began publishing David's comic series Stray Bullets. Lapham has won Eisner Awards for his work on Stray Bullets and Murder Me Dead.

Andrea Mutti began drawing comics in his native Italy during the early 1990s collaborating with various European publishers on such series as DNAction (Xenia Edizioni), Lazarus Ledd and Nathan Never (both for Star Comics). In 2001, he landed in the U.S. market drawing acclaimed series such as The Executor and DMZ for DC/Vertigo, various Iron Man series for Marvel and G.I. Joe Origins for IDW, Top Cow, Image, Dark Horse, Vault, Humanoids, Dynamite, MadCave, The Lab, among many others.

Andrea Sorrentino is an Italian comic artist and Eisner Award winning storyteller. He is the co-creator of Gideon Falls and Primordial and has also done Batman, Joker, Wolverine, X-Men, and Green Arrow.

Alexandre Tefenkgi is an international comic book artist of Vietnamese-Djiboutian descent. He’s the visual creator of the Eisner and Harvey Award–winning comics The Good Asian with Pornsak Pichetshote, as well as the postapocalyptic love story Once Upon a Time at the End of the World with Jason Aaron. He specializes in character-driven stories and emotional poetry. His craft is devoted to expressing the complexity of human relationships.

Dustin Weaver began his career in comics as an intern at WildStorm Studios in 2003, where he was held to an unreasonable standard by his idol. Since then, he's illustrated the NY Times bestselling novel The Tenth Circle, had a fruitful relationship with Dark Horse Comics where he made significant contributions to the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series, and worked for several years exclusively at Marvel where, most notably, he co-created the acclaimed series S.H.I.E.L.D: Architects of Forever with writer Jonathan Hickman. In recent years, Dustin has moved into the writing side of comics. He helped define IDW's approach to Rocksteady and Bebop in their Ninja Turtles comics by co-writing the duo's introductory issue and the mini-series Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything! For Marvel he has performed as writer and artist for Edge of Spider-Verse and the five-issue series Infinity Gauntlet: Warzones.

He now dedicates himself to his creator-owned series, PAKLIS

Valeria Burzo is an Italian cartoonist and illustrator. In 2013, she obtained a two-year degree in Design and Applied Arts, Cinema and TV Scenography section at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. She has worked on several comic projects including collaborating with Luca Raimondo on the pencils of Il Cabalista di Praga published by Glenat, L'Ultimo Scugnizzo published by Marotta & Cafiero Editore, Le Indagini di Tom Bacardi published by Edizioni Inkiostro, Samuel Stern published by Bugs Comics, The Witches of World War II published by TKO Studios, Castle Full of Blackbirds published by Dark Horse, and The Hunt for the Skinwalker published by Boom Studios.

John McCrea has been drawing comics for 30 years (his most famous work is Hitman for DC) and has worked on Wolverine, Deadpool, Spider-Man and The Hulk for Marvel, Batman, Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Superman for DC, Mythic for Image Comics, The Boys for Dynamite (now a tv show) and Judge Dredd for 2000 AD.

PJ Holden is a Belfast based comic artist best known for his work for Judge Dredd for 2000 AD. Over the past twenty years, PJ has built a reputation as a rock solid storyteller able to illustrate everything from grim dystopian futures, to over the top comedy adventures through war stories on land, sea, and air.