Tutenstein creator Jay Stephens is returning to comics with a new limited series called Dwellings. But despite being inspired by classic Harvey Comics series like Casper the Friendly Ghost, this new project is anything but kid-friendly. It's a twisted horror comedy series where darkness lurks beneath the squeaky-clean exterior of an idyllic small town.
Head down to the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at this demented horror comic:
Dwellings is written and drawn by Stephens. The series spans three 72-page issues, each with two full stories. Here's Oni's official description for the new series:
Welcome to Elwich – an oasis of small town perfection, where the schools overflow with cheery-eyed children, lovingly adorned homes line the historic boulevards… and only the crows can see the deep, festering rot that lurks beneath the pristine surface. Murder. Demonology. Possession. Obsession. Elwich has them all on offer—and behind every dwelling awaits a horrifying new story to be told...
“As a young collector in the days before the internet, before our town even dreamt of a comic shop, I remember walking the train tracks on weekends, hunting back issues at garage sales and flea markets, picking up whatever I could find,” said Stephens in Oni's press release. “Though considered uncool, I was magnetically attracted to the irresistibly adorable Harvey comics... Casper, Spooky, Wendy and Hot Stuff in particular... and always kept an eye out for that one issue where they finally revealed who murdered Casper the Friendly Ghost. If the definition of nostalgia is to 'return home in pain,' Dwellings is the most nostalgic work I've ever produced. And my re-imagining of that darker Harvey Comics backstory has festered and intertwined with my personal fears into something truly frightening.”
"It's a sincere pleasure to welcome Jay Stephens back to Oni with one of the scariest, funniest, most twisted comics series of the decade," added Oni's President & Publisher, Hunter Gorinson. "Like Something Is KIlling the Children force fed through a woodchipper with a stack of old Harvey Comics and a half-empty bottle of absinthe, Dwellings is a nightmarish combination of pathological violence, nerve-fraying intensity, and day-glo suburban charm – all from the pen of a master cartoonist who has been building toward this series for the better part of two decades. Even if you've read tens of thousands of comics, I can guarantee this: You have never seen anything like Dwellings before..and aren't like to again anytime soon."
Dwellings #1 will be released on Wednesday, August 9.
For more from the world of comics, check out the biggest new comics of August 2023, and be sure to brush up on everything announced at San Diego Comic-Con.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
