Read It Here, Ahead of Free Comic Book Day: "THE CHAMPION"

 EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one of my favorite stories from EC Comics/Oni Press CRUEL UNIVERSE anthology series. Look further below for previews of upcoming covers and titles as the EC Comics revival continues. A great time to be a fan . . . . . . . .

First Look: Read “The Champion” by Matt Kindt & Kano Before EC Comics Bites into Free Comic Book Day with BLOOD TYPE #0! Featuring Three of EC’s Best & Bloodiest of the Year with Creators Corinna Bechko & Jonathan Case, Matt Kindt & Kano, and Chris Condon & Charlie Adlard and More – In Comic Shops Everywhere for FCDB 2025 on May 3rd!

PORTLAND, OR (May 1, 2025)– Ahead of Free Comic Book Day on May 3rd, EC Comics and Oni Press are thrilled to present “The Champion” from Matt Kindt (BRZRKR, Mind MGMT) & Kano (Gotham Central) from EC CRUEL UNIVERSE #1 before it appears in Oni’s star-studded offering Free Comic Book Day 2025: BLOOD TYPE #0 – in participating stores everywhere on Saturday, May 3rd! ! This exclusive FCBD releases features encore presentations of some of this year's most shocking, fan-favorite EC Comics stories from EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS, CRUEL UNIVERSEand CRUEL KINGDOM, with an all-new cover by Eisner Award nominee Tyler Crook(Harrow County, Out of Alcatraz) – and an exclusive look ahead at this summer's sinister wave of horrifying new EC Comics titles! THE SUMMER OF FEAR starts here with a special re-introduction to the perilous first appearance EC’s blood-thirsty, bon vivant vampire from EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS #3 … before she rises from the grave and stakes her claim to EC's landmark, first-ever serialized horror series this June in BLOOD TYPE #1 (of 4) from Hugo Award-nominated writer Corinna Bechko (Cruel Universe, Green Lantern: Earth One) and Eisner Award-winning artist Andrea Sorrentino (Gideon Falls, Old Man Logan)!  THEN: THE SUMMER OF FEAR descends to terrifying new depths in CATACOMB OF TORMENT #1 – the first issue of A BLOODY NEW ONGOING SERIES! Out of the ashes of EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS, join us to usher THE TORMENTOR – a new horror host with an insatiable interest in human anatomy – into EC Comics infamy with our next monthly horror anthology! For Her Royal Travesty of Pain's first request: Master storytellers John Arcudi (B.P.R.D.), Marguerite Bennett (Batwoman), Matt Kindt (BRZRKR), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Dan McDaid (Shazam!), and more each take turns manning the rack and turning the red-hot irons for three all-new and blisteringly brutal tales of mayhem and malice in the undying EC tradition! BUT, WAIT, THERE’S GORE! THE SUMMER OF FEAR reaches to the star-lined edge of infinity as EC’s sci-fi smash-hit returns with AN ALL-NEW, UNRELENTING MAXI-SERIES in CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #1! Join this doomed expedition into the cold, unforgiving galaxies beyond our own as nihilistic navigators J. Holtham (EC's Epitaphs from the Abyss), Kano (Immortal Iron Fist), Anne Nocenti (Daredevil), David Rubín (Sherlock Frankenstein), and more smash the laws of science . . . and splice the immortal EC Comics genome into a new breed of parasitic extraterrestrial tales with an endless appetite for pain! The second shocking year of EC’s unholy resurrection is almost upon us … and critics are already saying, “This is literal torture” and “Please make it stop!” This Free Comic Book Day, pick up BLOOD TYPE #0 at a local comic book retailer you … and we just might consider letting them go!  EC BLOOD TYPE #0  WRITTEN BY CORINNA BECHKO, CHRIS CONDON, & MATT KINDT  ART BY CHARLIE ADLARD, JONATHAN CASE, & KANO COVER BY TYLER CROOK IN STORES MAY 3rd, 2025 | FREE | 32 PGS. | FC EC BLOOD TYPE #1 (of 4) WRITTEN BY CORINNA BECHKO ART BY ANDREA SORRENTINO COVER A BY MIGUEL MERCADO COVER B BY ANDREA SORRENTINO FOIL VARIANT ($8.99) BY MIGUEL MERCADO EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY ALBERT MONTEYS B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY ANDREA SORRENTINO ARCHIVE EDITION (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTIN HORROR HOST VARIANT (1:100) BY KYLE HOTZ BLANK SKETCH VARIANT AVAILABLE ON SALE JUNE 11, 2025 | $4.99 | 32 PAGES | FC FOC: 5/19/2025 EC CATACOMB OF TORMENT #1 WRITTEN BY JOHN ARCUDI, MARGUERITE BENNETT & MATT KINDT ART BY DAVID LAPHAM, DAN McDAID & PATRICK PIAZZALUNGA COVER A BY JORGE FORNÉS ON SALE JULY 16th, 2025 | $4.99 | 40PAGES | FC IOC: 5/22/2025 FOC: 6/23/2025 EC CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #1 WRITTEN BY J. HOLTHAM, ANN NOCENTI & MOREART BY DAVID RUBÍN, KANO & MORE COVER A BY LEE BERMEJO ON SALE AUGUST 6th, 2025 | $4.99 | 40 PAGES | FC IOC: 6/26/2025 FOC: 7/14/2025

COVER ART BY TYLER CROOK

"THE CHAMPION" INTERIOR ART BY KANO

BLOOD TYPE #1 COVER A BY MIGUEL MERCADO

CATACOMB OF TORMENT #1 COVER A BY JORGE FORNÉS

CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #1 COVER A BY LEE BERMEJO

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.