PRESS RELEASE
Oni Press – the multiple Eisner and Harvey award-winning publisher of boundary-breaking comics – is proud to announce that DARK REGARDS #1 – THE TRUE STORY OF THE VIRAL HOAX SO INSANE IT COULD ONLY BE TOLD AS A COMIC BOOK from the mind of multi-hyphenate writer-comedian-actor-musician Dave Hill (Tasteful Nudes) and breakout artist Artyom Topilin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place) – will feature (not even kidding) a highly limited,1:50 HUMAN BLOOD VARIANT cover illustrated by Dave Hill himself … and printed with ink that contains the ACTUAL BLOOD of writer Dave Hill, series editor Karl Bollers, and Oni President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson.
“I started the original Witch Taint emails purely to entertain myself late at night while sitting around in my underwear,” said Dave Hill. “I never intended for anyone else to ever see them. But eventually I showed a couple friends and soon after there was an entire website dedicated to the emails at theblackmetaldialogues.com, where suddenly the whole world could read them. That led to me talking with Malcolm Gladwell about Witch Taint on his podcast. The next thing I know, I’m in the back of some strange van where some guy is jabbing my arm so he can put my actual blood into a comic book about the whole thing. My life is a mess.”
“As every die-hard comics fan and retailer knows, the four members of KISS notoriously mixed their blood into the ink of their Marvel Treasury Edition in 1977,” said Oni Press Publisher Hunter Gorinson. “Ever since I first read about that in a letter column in Wizard Magazine in 1993, I have been looking for a copy … and waiting, patiently biding my time, until Oni Press would be presented with a series so extreme, so hilarious, so incalculably hardcore as to warrant the same treatment. Now, Dave Hill and Artyom Topilin are on the cusp of fulfilling that prophecy with DARK REGARDS #1 – and, through the dark power of multiple Non-Disclosure Agreements, we have figured out how to do the near-impossible: put real-life human blood into a comic book cover.”
Stay tuned in the weeks ahead as Oni Press documents the process of producing this extremely unusual variant covers through its various social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky for the benefit of future comics historians.
Then: Buckle up because this book is coming in like a screaming eagle to comic shops everywhere on May 13th! From the honestly pretty impressive mind of multi-hyphenate writer-comedian-actor-musician Dave Hill (Tasteful Nudes) and breakout artist Artyom Topilin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place) comes DARK REGARDS #1 – THE SHOCKINGLY TRUE, TERRIFYINGLY HILARIOUS, AND ONLY MODESTLY EXAGGERATED tale of how one stand-up comedian forged a secret online identity as America’s first true black metal icon . . . and accidentally started an international incident that almost wiped Gary, Indiana, off the map!
Two decades ago, Dave Hill and his first band set out to rock their high school auditorium in a fury of heavy metal hellfire. They failed miserably. Years later, Dave has made a new life for himself as a rising star in the New York comedy scene—a career where getting laughed at on stage is the entire point and not just a tragic consequence. But when Dave’s metal ambitions are reawakened by the über self-serious “satanic” genre of Norwegian black metal, Dave creates a ridiculously hyperbolic alter ego and a band to match that, together, reignite the spark of his forgotten rock ’n’ roll fantasy. But when Dave’s internet-fueled rumors of Witch Taint—a metal band “so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area” when their music is played—spreads all the way to Europe, his story will spiral dangerously out of control as Norway’s most extreme black metal butchers come to reap their revenge . . . and put everything and everyone Dave holds dear in the crosshairs (of their axes, which, truth be told, don’t actually have crosshairs, but, hey, it’s a metaphor).
In the meantime, if you’re curious, pop a listen to Dave Hill’s longform podcast interview with The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell about the true story behind DARK REGARDS (and how he almost started an international incident) on an episode of the BROKEN RECORD podcast with Gladwell and record producer Rick Rubin.
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! DARK REGARDS #1 will not be denied when it lays siege to comic shops everywhere on May 13th with Artyom Topiin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place), Andrew Krahnke (GI Joe: A Real American Hero – Silent Missions, Bloodrik), Scott Sugiuchi (Estrus: Shovelin’ The Sh*t), Brian Level (Razorblades, Night People) and the ultra-special HUMAN BLOOD VARIANT that will be spoken of in whispers by your future descendants.
