PRESS RELEASE
BY THE HORNS creators Markisan Naso and Jason Muhr have ended their contract with Scout Comics after five years.
Under Scout, 20 issues of BY THE HORNS were published, making it the longest running series at the publisher. One trade paperback was released, collecting the first 8 issues.
“Jason and I are grateful to Scout Comics for picking up BY THE HORNS during the pandemic and for publishing 20 issues of our series,” said BY THE HORNS co-creator and writer Markisan Naso. “As our contract neared its end, we decided it was time to part ways with Scout and find a new avenue for finishing our story.”
BY THE HORNS is an emotional sci-fi/fantasy adventure about a hunter named Elodie who wants to kill all the unicorns on the continent of Solothus for trampling her husband. She sets out with her telepathic half wolf/half deer friend, Sajen, to track them down, but they end up discovering that there’s an even greater threat out there than unicorns – four ancient wind wizards who have been abducting all the mystical creatures on Solothus for mysterious reasons. To stop them, they must team up with a pair of unicorns who don’t know Elodie wants to murder them. The unicorns allow her to rip off their horns and magically combine them to form deadly weapons.
The acclaimed series has won numerous comic book website and podcast awards since it began in 2021, and earned two prestigious RINGO Award nominations for Best Cover Artist in 2023 and Best Single Issue or Graphic Novel in 2024 (for BY THE HORNS: Dark Earth #7). Additionally, BY THE HORNS is the most reviewed Scout series of all time with a 9/10 Comic Book Roundup average critic rating and a 9.9/10 reader rating across 20 issues.
Naso and Muhr are currently working on the third 8-issue arc, titled BY THE HORNS: Fire in the Sky, and will seek a new publisher to partner with on the next chapter, as well as on re-releasing the series’ back catalog. Two more epic arcs of BY THE HORNS are planned, along with an epilogue issue.
“Now that we have full control of BY THE HORNS, we’d love to find a great publisher to help us continue the book and reach a larger audience,” Naso said. “We’re thrilled about where the story is going and we think publishers will be too. Everything just gets bigger, wilder and more explosive in Fire in the Sky.”
“We’re excited to continue the BY THE HORNS saga,” added Jason Muhr, BY THE HORNS co-creator and artist. “I’ve already drawn some of the craziest pages of the entire series in this next arc. Readers have no idea where we’re taking the BTH crew next.”
The creators also plan to continue delivering new BY THE HORNS collections to readers through Kickstarter, where they have already run two successful campaigns for beautiful deluxe hardcover editions of BY THE HORNS Vol. 1: The Wind Rises and BY THE HORNS Vol. 2: Dark Earth, published in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
