#horror – #PressRelease – #horrorcomics – @OniPress – #OutlawShowdown –
Oni Press Proudly Presents The First in All–New Series of Giant-Sized, 56-Page EC Comics Genre Specials – With Blazin’ Talents of John Arcudi, Brian Azzarello, David Lapham, Tony Moore, Ann Nocenti, and more!
From The Press Release:
PORTLAND, OR (July 15, 2025) SOME COMIC BOOK COMPANIES ASK YOU TO CHOOSE: DEATH OR GLORY? AT EC COMICS, WE SAY . . . WHY NOT BOTH?! In advance of Comic-Con International in San Diego, CA, Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997, and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. are proud to reveal OUTLAW SHOWDOWN #1 – the first in a new series of unpredictable and unforgiving 56-page specials visiting EC’s trademark brand of hard-won vengeance upon storytelling genres from across the ages . . . from prehistoric survival to crime and punishment in epochs far beyond our own.
Debuting this October in our inaugural bonfire of bullets: As the sun settles high above this bone-dry stretch of mesa, wipe the blood from your boot heels and place your wagers as Oni Press and EC Comics raise their pistols to pump six cylinders of hot lead and cold hearts into OUTLAW SHOWDOWN #1 – EC’s first 56-page special celebrating revenge and retribution on the lawless frontiers of the Old West! Gunfighters, scoundrels, butchers, and bandits—they’ll all join us here to draw down on fate itself as coffin-bound creators John Arcudi (B.P.R.D.), Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Tony Moore (The Walking Dead), Ann Nocenti (Daredevil), and more rain hellfire and fury from the holsters on their hip.
Plus, as an extra-added bounty: Saddle up for a newly remastered and authentically restored tale of hard-fought Western justice from the EC vaults!
“Ever since we first began drawing up plans for the return of EC Comics at Oni Press, we knew there were genres and stories that would fit EC like a glove – and westerns were always close to the top of that list,” said Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson. “It’s no secret that classic Golden Age series like GUNFIGHTER and SADDLE JUSTICE have always been integral – if somewhat under-considered – components of EC’s destructive DNA. But, with OUTLAW SHOWDOWN – and the other forthcoming genre specials that will follow in its wake – we’re aiming to enhance and amplify the combustible combination of ingredients that has made EC’s stories sing – or scream! – across 70-plus years of comics history. These are stories that will grab you tighter than a hangman’s noose . . . and leave you kicking and screaming for more before the last page is through.”
“For years the western genre has been wildly underrepresented in modern day comics and now some of the greatest storytellers just cannot wait to get their twisted inventions to the page with shysters, cowboys and zombie or two at the helm,” said Sierra Hahn, Oni Press Editor-in-Chief. “We’re honored by this creative line up who will doubtless entertain and terrify until the ink runs dry.”
Also joining our perilous posse, point an ol’ six-shooter salute to sky and welcome steel-sighted cover artists Lee Bermejo (Joker), Tony Moore (The Walking Dead), Ladrönn (Cable), Shawn McManus (Fables), and Rian Hughes (The Multiversity) to this blood-stained, power-burned milestone in EC history. This October, the West runs red –only in OUTLAW SHOWDOWN #1!
About Oni Press
Founded in 1997, Oni Press has a 25-year history as one of the industry’s most respected and acclaimed publishers of award-winning comic books and graphic novels with titles including Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim, K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, Ezra Clayton Daniels’ Upgrade Soul, Brenna Thummler’s Sheets trilogy, and many hundreds more. In 2019, Oni Press merged with Lion Forge Comics – the Eisner Award-winning independent comic book publisher founded by Academy Award-winning producer and entrepreneur David Steward II – to create one of the largest, independent libraries of comics content anywhere in media. The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group now exists as a publishing subsidiary of Steward’s diversified global media company, Polarity.
The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group publishes more than 60 original and licensed graphic novels annually, in addition to an extensive list of periodical comics.
About EC Comics
As the birthplace of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, MAD MAGAZINE, WEIRD SCIENCE, and more of the most influential and celebrated comic series ever published, EC Comics has cemented itself as one of the central nerves of American pop culture with a legacy that spans more than seven decades. From 1944 to 1956, EC – established as “Educational Comics” by founder M.C. Gaines and later rebranded “Entertaining Comics” under the leadership of Publisher & Editor William M. Gaines – led a creative renaissance for the comics industry that, for the first time, elevated the once-derided comics medium into the echelons of English literature and high art. Heralded as “one of the great explosions of vox-pop literature” by Time Magazine and “fiercely honest, politically adversarial, [and] visually masterful” by The Comics Journal, EC’s line of comics books – which collectively sold more than 10 million copies annually at their peak – entertained and informed in equal measure, using brilliantly crafted tales of horror, science fiction, satire, and battlefield conflict to critique and subvert America’s dark impulses toward violence, racism, inequity, environmental destruction, and war.
Forcibly shuttered by the Comics Code Authority – a pro-censorship group specifically tasked with eradicating EC’s illuminating influence from the American comic book industry – in 1956, EC’s unique brand of subversive storytelling lived on through the continued success of MAD Magazine, which would fuel American counterculture through the death of Publisher William M. Gaines in 1992. EC’s titles and stories have been adapted in a number of media – including the long-running HBO’s long-running TALES FROM THE CRYPT franchise of television series and feature films – and continue to be celebrated by multiple generations of comic creators, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians as a seminal influence.
Today, EC Comics’ canon of classic stories can continuously be found in print through new editions at Dark Horse Comics, TASCHEN, Fantagraphics, and IDW Publishing. In 2024, EC announced a new partnership with multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher Oni Press to produce the first all-new EC Comics titles in nearly 70 years.