Oni Press—the award-winning publisher behind Scott Pilgrim and Gender Queer—is about to bring us one of the most ridiculous and metal comics of the year, and Boing Boing was given the exclusive on revealing its metal AF special cover: a human blood variant! (see below).
Yes, that's right, as in printed in the blood of its creators. \m/ Rawr \m/
Dark Regards is the brainchild of the hyper-hyphenated writer-comedian-actor-musician Dave Hill (Tasteful Nudes) and artist Artyom Topilin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place). The book tells the (mostly) totally true, totally twisted tale of Witch Taint, a black metal band "so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area." What started as a late-night internet gag spiraled into a full-blown viral hoax, a podcast discussion with Malcolm Gladwell, and now, a comic book—one version of which contains the literal blood of Dave Hill, series editor Karl Bollers, and Oni Press Publisher Hunter Gorinson.
If this sounds like something KISS might have done in 1977, you're not wrong. "Ever since I first read about that in a letter column in Wizard Magazine in 1993, I've been waiting… patiently biding my time," says Gorinson. And now, the prophecy has been fulfilled.
The Dark Regards #1 Human Blood Variant is a 1:50 limited edition cover, illustrated by Hill himself, and printed with a custom ink that includes the vital bodily fluids of its creators (OK, don't get carried away – just the blood…um at least as far as we know… Oh god…).
"I started the original Witch Taint emails purely to entertain myself late at night while sitting around in my underwear," says 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 attheblackmetaldialogues.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."
Dark Regards isn't just a teen metalhead's fever dream—it promises to be a hilarious, absurd, and only slightly exaggerated chronicle of how one comedian's ridiculous online persona nearly caused an international incident.
And yes, it also marks the first-ever comic book appearance of Malcolm Gladwell. Scary!
Dark Regards #1 is coming to comic shops on May 13th. And if you want art that literally bleeds, there's a blood-soaked cover variant just for you.
