Manic of New York #1 / $4.99 / 32 pages / Color / On Sale February 2021
Writer: Elliott Kalan
Artist & Colorist: Andrea Mutti
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Cover: Andrea Mutti
Four years ago, a masked slasher began stalking the streets of New York City. Maniac Harry is inhuman, unkillable and unstoppable. Which is why the authorities’ solution has been to ignore him, and let New Yorkers adapt to a world where death can strike at any moment. When Maniac Harry starts killing his way through the subway system, trauma-haunted political aide Gina Greene and disgraced NYPD detective Zelda Pettibone become determined to go rogue and destroy him. But how can they fight a monster when they can’t fight City Hall?
From writer Elliott Kalan (The Daily Show, MST3K, Spider-Man & The X-Men) and artist Andrea Mutti (Port of Earth, Hellblazer) comes the horrifying story of what happens when terror becomes the new normal. A frightening, thought-provoking, sometimes funny, always timely tale of murder, obsession, and urban living.
ELLIOTT KALAN ON WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT AND WHY HE IS EXCITED FOR IT TO COME OUT:
“Maniac of New York is a horror story about how crisis situations become our new normal. A slasher movie-style unstoppable killer is marauding through New York City, and since nobody knows how to solve the problem, everyone in power has given up and decides to just live with New Yorkers occasionally being hacked to death by an axe-wielding maniac. The series will look at how life changes, and doesn’t change, in the city from different angles — starting in our first arc with a story about an idealistic mayoral aide, a jaded police detective, and a very bad day for commuters on the subway.
I’ve been wanting to tell these stories for a very long time. I love New York in the way only a true New Yorker can — with a burning desire to see the it fictionally destroyed. I’ve never felt previous horror stories really took advantage of the nightmare opportunities the city has to offer, so it’s been exciting to play with all that. And I’ve loved watching Andrea bring it to life with his art after years of the idea living in my head.”
ELLIOTT KALAN ON SOME OF HIS INSPIRATIONS BEHIND CREATING THIS BOOK:
“The original inspiration for the series was my extreme adolescent disappointment with Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which promised a citywide metropolitan bloodbath and delivered a couple shots of Jason walking through Times Square in a bad mood. But beyond that the New York movies of the 70’s and 80’s, when the city was gross and ugly and exciting, and felt like it was full of real people and not just wealthy hedge fund managers. The first storyline is heavily indebted to my favorite movie of all time, the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three.”
ELLIOTT KALAN ON SOME OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WRITING COMICS AND HIS WRITING ON SHOWS LIKE THE DAILY SHOW AND MST3K:
“The biggest difference in comics writing is having to break scenes down into individual moments for each panel, because you can’t show movement. Though it’s actually helped me a lot in breaking down the beats of my television work.
Actually, the biggest difference is I never have to worry about the budget. Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve? Not a problem, we can shoot there. Get a whole subway train? Done, no permits necessary. And casting is a snap, because we can just invent whoever we need.”
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