Vault Comics has announced Project Perseus, a new science fiction adventure series from writer Jack Mulqueen, artist Edison Neo, colorist Kike J. Díaz, letterer Buddy Beaudoin, and designer Tim Daniel.
Described as a globe-spanning cryptid thriller packed with action, comedy, and time travel, the series follows Slug Stephens, a washed-up former member of a cryptid-hunting squadron who is forced to get his life together when an old friend disappears with a device capable of traveling through time. What follows is a race across dangerous jungles, frozen seas, and plenty of questionable establishments as Slug attempts to stop a growing threat before time itself unravels.
According to Mulqueen, the project was conceived as a story designed specifically for comics.
“This story was born from a desire to tell a tale that could only be told in the medium of comics,” said Mulqueen. “At the time when the story was conceived, there was a lot of discourse regarding the medium of comics being used as an IP farm for other mediums, people using comics as spec-scripts and proof of concept, in hopes their work would get optioned to television or film. From the start, we knew we wanted to tell a story that would be so batshit insane, that it would be prohibitively expensive to recreate it in any other medium, and therefore, it would be a story that would belong singularly to comics.”
Mulqueen credits Neo’s artistic range as a major factor in the book’s creative ambition.
“Having that clarity of purpose, that creative freedom from the jump, I knew that my obligation was to truly push the artistic limits of my creative partner, Edison Neo,” continued Mulqueen. “To my dismay, I discovered that his limits do not exist… And at that juncture, I discovered a new type of freedom… That I could put anything in my script, and he would bring it to life with an excellence beyond my imagination. What remains, when the ectoplasmic dust settles, is a story that we believe encapsulates the unbridled joy of making comics, and our hopes are that that joy translates to the reading experience as well. It’s campy, it has comedy, it has jaw-dropping action sequences that will leave you poring over each and every detail, and it’s got a beating heart… truisms universal within the human experience. We had a lot of fun making this book, and can’t wait for the readers to join us for the ride.”
Neo revealed the project has been in development for roughly four years.
“Jack approached me with the idea for Project Perseus about four years ago,” said Neo. “Hunting cryptids all over the world, even involving time travel to different eras? It was totally in my wheelhouse, I was completely sold. Since then, we have been putting every effort into fleshing out this idea into the biggest, craziest, most action-packed story we could ever imagine, and as the fantasy of the book coming to life became reality, we went even harder and went several notches higher. Beyond the bombastic nature of the story, however, it would be nothing if it were not centred around a cast of rich and nuanced characters.”
The artist also emphasized the team’s desire to create a comic that embraces the strengths of the medium.
“As an artist, I wanted to test my limits and see how far I could stretch my abilities,” Neo added. “Fortunately, working with a wildly imaginative writer like Jack, that was the biggest thing on the menu. With exotic landscapes, unique creatures, and colorful characters put in all sorts of crazy situations, I had my work cut out for me. We drew a lot of inspiration from sci-fi movies and video games, but make no mistake, the biggest inspiration was from comics. Deliberations about double-page spreads, panel layouts, covers, even down to the onomatopoeia, we wanted to make sure that this was a comic book through and through, and we are looking forward to everyone being able to pick this off the stands.”
Check out a preview below!
Project Perseus launches in September with an oversized 40-page debut issue. The first issue will also feature variant covers by Esad Ribic, Brett Bean, Jorge Corona, Garth Graham, and Pete Carroll.
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