| PORTLAND, OR (February 18, 2025) – SOMETIMES YOU BREAK THE INTERNET – AND SOMETIMES THE INTERNET BREAKS YOU! ~ Oni Press – the multiple Eisner and Harvey award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comic books and graphic novels since 1997– is proud to announce 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) comes 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 started an international incident that almost wiped Gary, Indiana off the map!
“Back in 2018, Dave Hill sat down with noted intellectual Malcolm Gladwell to finally come clean about his double life. A brilliant comedian, writer, satirist, and musician, Dave has done everything from play sold-out shows with Bill Murray and Tenacious D to write the theme song for John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO,” said Hunter Gorinson, enthused president and publisher of Oni Press. “But he’d never before revealed the details of how he’d orchestrated a years-long internet hoax by posing as the frontman of a fictional band, only to accidentally touch off an international trail of mayhem that included kidnappings, attempted human sacrifice, and the vandalizing of the last freestanding Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in the Midwest. Call it a guilty conscience . . . but, to this day, Dave still has only told half the story. Now, at last, the raw fury of the DARK REGARDS can finally be told – and, as visually reconstructed through the brilliant artwork of illustrator Artyom Topilin – rest assured: only the comic book medium can totally capture the depraved intensity of what Dave hath wrought on us all.”
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 re-awakened 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).
“Like all the best black metal bands, Witch Taint existed entirely in my mind at first, mostly because I didn’t think anyone could handle it,” said Dave Hill. “But it could not be contained. And now the mighty Witch Taint has no choice but to destroy the universe. Or at least the suburbs.”
FOR REAL: YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THE DOSE OF HELLFIRE THAT IS DARK REGARDS #1 – laying siege (the old-fashioned medieval way with cool, long ladders and boiling oil and maces and stuff) 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 an ultra-special top-secret one WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT YET from Dave Hill himself. |
