All Eight Eyes #1 on Final Order Cutoff TODAY
Yelps & Barks
It’s possible I forgot I had a newsletter.
A side effect of being very gratefully busy is that I tend to de-prioritize the parts of my life that aren’t directly related to deadlines or unwinding from said deadlines, and a free newsletter very much falls in that crack.
I promise to be better, but not that much better.
HOWEVER, it is imperative I jump on here today and bang the drum one last time for ALL EIGHT EYES #1, which is on Final Order Cutoff today, 3/27.
What is ALL EIGHT EYES?
In the forgotten corners of post-9/11 New York City, skittering shapes in the darkness prey on the people society leaves behind. College dropout Vin Spencer floats through life in a drug-and-party-fueled haze, until one terrible night sweeps him into a drifter's reckless war against the giant eight-legged horrors stalking the city.
Jaws meets Arachnophobia in a new vision of creature-feature terror from Eisner-nominated writer Steve Foxe (Razorblades: The Horror Magazine) and dread-inspiring artist Piotr Kowalski (Bloodborne)!
There’s the official solicit for #1, which I feel sets us up pretty well. ALL EIGHT EYES takes place in the early years of the 21st Century, as an aimless young New Yorker discovers there’s much more to the city than he knows—or maybe wants to know. As the series progresses, we meet people working in various levels of city government, too, with differing ideas about exposing the dark corners of the Big Apple.
ALL EIGHT EYES is about giant spiders, more than anything else. I have a deep, unironic love of movies like Alligator and Q: The Winged Serpent and The Nest and Piranha and even earlier flicks like Them! And The Giant Gila Monster. They tickle a primal part of my brain: man, it turns out, is not the top of the food chain. It’s a sub-genre of horror we’ve more or less lost over the years, aside from beautiful outliers like The Host. I’m not sure why, though I suspect it’s because we’ve opted for obscene scale (the American Godzilla films, Rampage) or “realistic” versions like Crawl and The Shallows. ALL EIGHT EYES is my go at somewhat modernizing the “creature-feature B-movie” without losing the charm, personal stakes, or willingness to ask the audience to buy in to the notion that a bug can get, like, really big.
I am joined on this endeavor by Piotr Kowalski, one of the busiest—and, for my money, finest—artists working in horror comics today. So much of ALL EIGHT EYES is about the setting of New York itself, and Piotr brings the city to life brick by grimy brick, never sparing a detail. He also draws absolutely nasty spiders, which only get nastier (and bigger) as the book goes on. Which makes it all the funnier than both our colorist, Brad Simpson, and our letterer, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, don’t much care for our eight-legged friends. Brad and Piotr are a mystifyingly good match, with Brad doing so much to further the tone of the series, and Hass is forever one of my closest pals in the industry and one of the favorite pros just to watch work; given the room, he will innovate on his art every time.
The entire team at Dark Horse comics, from editor Daniel Chabon to Chuck Howitt, Misha Gehr, and Kaitlyn Nash, have gone above and beyond to help us tell our story as we intend it to be told, including the parts that get quite bleak. They also helped us line up a killer assortment of variant artists, starting with James Stokoe on #1 and leading into Trevor Henderson, David Romero, and Martin Simmonds on the remainder of the run. You can check out Stokoe’s below.
Today is Final Order Cutoff for ALL EIGHT EYES #1, which means it’s the last day comic shops can place orders for the issue. This determines the print run and basically whether or not the series is a “success,” though the main success for me is just getting to do this creepy-crawly book with such an impressive team. That said, everyone’s hard work on the book really deserves to be seen, so if you like monster movies, urban-set horror, odd-couple protagonists, a cute dog who does not get harmed or killed during the course of the book, and watching giant spiders terrorize people, please ask your shop to preorder ALL EIGHT EYES #1 today. Like, today-today.
Our order codes are:
Cover A: FEB230360
Cover B (James Stokoe Variant): FEB230361
And if you’re not tired of hearing about the book just yet, here’s what some of my favorite folks in the industry had to say about it:
“ALL EIGHT EYES is the killer creature-feature comic I've been waiting for. Foxe crafts a story that's part Alligator and part Mimic with timely themes that elevate the whole affair. Kowalski's art here is gross, human, & gorgeous. There's a real sense of '90s NYC in this book. It's populated with fully realized characters who could all lead their own story, and built around a fascinating history for giant spiders stalking the city streets. There's one page in particular that had me hooting and hollering.”—ZAC THOMPSON (I Breathed a Body, Lonely Receiver, Ka-Zar)
“Got the chance to check out ALL EIGHT EYES from Dark Horse Comics, which I put as one of my most anticipated horror comics of the year for Fangoria. Foxe, Kowalski, Simpson & Otsmane-Elhaou created the perfect creature feature. […] There is a cute dog, a gruff spider slayer, and a queer lead. There are giant killer spiders. What else do you want? This book understands the appeal of monster movies of this nature.”—Dan McMahon (GateCrashers co-founder, Fangoria contributor)
“One of my favorite people AND favorite writers, Steve Foxe has a book coming out soon that’s classic 80’s monster horror, with a gay lead and the cutest dog you’ll see in comics. Literally read the first two issues on the edge of my seat, such a delicious classic creature feature with so much heart. Embrace the spider takeover and preorder ALL EIGHT EYES…or else.”—Josh Cornillon (Pool Boys)
“ALL EIGHT EYES by Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou is a wild, creepy, and fun exploration of the horrible things we can't (or don't want to) see. Great characters, beautiful art, and a very good dog make this the must-read horror comic of 2023!”—Matthew Rosenberg (What’s The Furthest Place From Here?, WildC.A.T.S., The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing)
“'Feelgood horror' is absolutely a genre and it's one we should all cherish. If you like Night of the Creeps, Return of the Living Dead, B.P.R.D. and The Frighteners then you will love ALL EIGHT EYES.”—Alex Paknadel (All Against All, Red Goblin)
“Things that go bump in the night elevated to new heights. […] ALL EIGHT EYES reads like watching old classic monster flicks such as Arachnophobia, Gremlins, Critters, etc. Plenty of body horror, plenty of blood, and plenty of gross out moments! I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves being entertained by oversized monsters terrorizing humans!”—Justin Smith of The House of Nerd Show
“You owe it to yourself to add ALL EIGHT EYES to your pull list today! Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have made something that will wriggle around in your brain long after you finish reading. The reason Steve edits all my scariest comic books (W0RLDTR33, THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, RAZORBLADES: THE HORROR MAGAZINE) is because he's one hell of a horror writer himself! If you dig my stuff, he's a big part of the reason you do.”—James Tynion IV (Eisner Award-winning writer of Something is Killing the Children, The Nice House on the Lake, Sandman: Nightmare Country)
“In the big damn tradition of big damn spider stories, Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have given us ALL EIGHT EYES. You've heard of alligators in the sewers? That's amateur hour. Let's talk spiders. Big ones. EVERYWHERE. ALL EIGHT EYES is an incredibly fun book, stem to stern. Its B-movie trappings are celebrated and elevated by smart writing and fantastically detailed artwork. This is the Moby Dick of creepy creature-feature comics. Don't miss out.”—Chris Condon (That Texas Blood, Hell is a Squared Circle)
“I got an early read [of ALL EIGHT EYES] and what a crazy horror adventure from mad men Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, from Dark Horse Comics! The secret nighttime world of giant monsters in the dark corners of the city! I'm in!”—Zack Kaplan (Mindset, Forever Forward)
“A comic about giant spiders is long overdue, and ALL EIGHT EYES really delivers. This concept could have been all schlocky fun, but Steve Foxe injects the script with empathetic, timely themes, making it so much more. And who doesn't wanna see Piotr Kowalski draw scary spiders?”—Lonnie Nadler (The Sickness, Black Stars Above, Nightingale Senior Writer)
“ALL EIGHT EYES by Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou is so much fun. A real great creature tale with a ton of heart.”—Kenny Porter (Superboy: Man of Tomorrow, DC: Mech, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive)
“ALL EIGHT EYES gave me the creeps, and this is from someone who just got done writing a book crawling with centipedes. Steve Foxe and Piotr Kowalski have a killer book full of giant spiders crawling through the seedy underbelly of NYC.”—Rich Douek (Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer of Breath of Shadows, Road of Bones, Sea of Sorrows)
“ALL EIGHT EYES is a master class in world-building. A grounded horror tale with characters that jump off the page and drag you back into the spider-infested streets of Foxe, Kowalski, and Simpson’s dank and dangerous New York City. Cinematic and memorable, ALL EIGHT EYES needs to be on your pull list, stat.”—Alex Segura (bestselling author of Secret Identity)
“I got to read the first issue of ALL EIGHT EYES early and...wow, we really are in a golden age of horror comics. […] Great sense of place, tone, and art that'll give you arachnophobia, even if you don't have it, and will maybe kill you if you already do?”—Adam Cesare (Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Clown in a Cornfield, Dead Mall)
“Nothing bad happens to the dog. The dog lives. The dog is good.”—Steve Foxe (me)
ON THE HORIZON:
The week before ALL EIGHT EYES #1 hits stands, MARVEL’S VOICES: SPIDER-VERSE arrives with the newest Web-Weaver story, this time by me, Luciano Vecchio, and Ruth Redmond, but I’ll save talking about that at length for the next newsletter!
I also popped up in X-Men Monday today. Hmm, wonder what that’s all about?
--Steve