Q&A: Creators breakdown their 2025 Oni Press releases

(Editor’s Note 12/5: This piece has been edited to remove a mis-placed IDW title)

Since its founding in 1997, Oni Press has cultivated quite an impressive catalog of titles. That lengthy list includes Scott Pilgrim and The Sixth Gun — novels books/stories that have defined the unmatched imaginative scope of this publisher. But in recent years, it’s felt like Oni Press has stepped up even further, and titles like Epitaphs from the Abyss and Calavera, P.I., among many others, have helped push the outfit to new creative heights.

And that trend looks to continue into the new year as Oni Press has recently announced a series of five new books (a mix of one-offs and miniseries) for spring/summer 2025. In a recent meeting of distributors (courtesy of Popverse), Oni Press publisher Hunter Gorinson said these books were part of a “war chest” he’d been helping to build up for some years. He also called one project, from writer Justin Jordan, as being “darker than he’s been in some time.”

To get a better idea of the stories themselves, AIPT took part in a recent virtual roundtable with all five creative teams. In addition to the pertinent info (book titles, release dates, summaries, etc.), all of the creators give insight into a rather interesting slate of books. A slate, we believe, will only further the lineage of great, genre-bounding storytelling that helps define Oni Press.

Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave

Writer Justin Jordan and artist Chris Shehan

Due Out: February 2025

Premise: Harley Creed is an ex-con hoping to escape his hometown (Briar Falls, West Virginia) for good. But unless Creed finds and kills the man who hexed him, he has just “seven days before he dies in twisted, screaming agony.”

AIPT: Justin, talk to me more about Harley Creed. Do you have a certain affinity and/or pity for him, and do you think this story can be a redemption for him on some level?

Justin Jordan: I think it’s hard to write characters without ending up with some sympathy for him. Harley is kind of a complex character in that regard, though. On one hand, he is a ruthless criminal with absolutely no remorse about what he’s done as a criminal. The one thing he does regret, he had no real choice in, as he was in a position no one should ever be in.

But at the same time, he didn’t deserve what happened to him before the story started, and it’s debatable whether or not he deserves what’s happening now. I don’t think, ultimately, it’s about getting redemption, but something like justice is about possible.

AIPT: Chris, what’s your approach in marrying crime, magic/witches, and the wonders of Appalachia?

Chris Shehan: I think horror, noir, and folklore can easily merge together stylistically so it doesn’t take much for me to merge things that were likely meant to go together. Or maybe it’s just that I was meant to draw gnarly trees, twig effigies, hexes, and sad/angry old men (see my previous works).

Out of Alcatraz

Writer Christopher Cantwell and artist Tyler Crook

Due Out: March 2025

Premise: Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin are behind the greatest escape ever when they broke out of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in June 1962. This story asks the only question that matters: “If the escapees survived, what kind of life, fresh restrictions, and new sentences will shackle their freedom after Alcatraz?”

AIPT: Chris, how do you ride that fine line between fictionalizing something like this famed escape and staying true to reality/the actual people in this case?

Christopher Cantwell: In terms of fictionalizing history, research is extremely important to me. This is something I took very seriously on my TV series Halt and Catch Fire. In telling the story of the beginning of the computing industry, how could we create emotionally impactful drama that also could plausibly exist within what I call “the cracks of history”? Something that is compelling on a character level but feels sincere and true, even if fictional? That’s what I really tried to do with this story. I researched the escape heavily, the prisoners themselves, the Federal response to the break, all of it, but also: California in 1962, and those very real communities and enclaves of the time. This is a very intimate story as well that speaks to themes of freedom and how people can feel imprisoned within their own lives, so I looked into different racial makeups of the time in that region, closeted sexuality, and just that whole big American idea of “home of the free” when there are these constant edges of conflict between groups everywhere. But more than the research comes the dramatic work—do these feel like real people when you read the story? I believe (or at least hope) they very much do. That’s what’s wonderful (or at least, emotionally gripping) about good fiction and real life—the sheer humanity of it.

AIPT: Tyler, does your approach or your style change/alter at all given that you’re working in the realm of non-fiction?

Tyler Crook: I don’t think my approach changes very much with non-fiction. My first thought was that I might do more research on a non-fiction book, but upon some reflection I don’t think that’s the case. Anytime there’s a specific setting like Alcatraz or some of my other books, like Harrow County, I end up doing a lot of visual research even if the story is completely made up. But I have to push back a little bit against the premise of the question because Out of Alcatraz is fiction. It’s historical fiction but a made up story nonetheless.

Plague House

Writer Michael W. Conrad and artist Dave Chisholm

Due Out: April 2025

Premise: After years of exploring haunted houses and the like, Jacob, Holland, and Del encounter the McCabe House, the scene of a grisly murder. Only after they enter do the trio actually learn “what it will require to cleanse the home of their restless spirits…”

AIPT: Michael, why do ghost stories still interest you, and is working in this larger tradition somehow encouraging or do you find yourself trying to “counter” other ghost tales?

Michael W. Conrad: My relationship with ghosts is interesting. Ghosts should offer most of us some comfort, as they may prove that the death of the corporeal body isn’t the definitive end of a being. More often than not ghosts are associated with tragedy, ill omens, and darkness, rather than proof positive that our great fears of mortality can be allayed through contact with such disincorporated spirits.

Our relationship to this is what I find most interesting. Why do we fear ghosts, if they may in fact provide evidence of an afterlife? What does this say about us, and our relationship with death as a concept? I’m interested in how this kind of thing works philosophically, and how that is reflected morally.

For better or worse, the result of such an examination is almost always horrific. Maybe we’d be better served as nihilists.

Plague House can be read either as an indictment of belief systems, or as confirmation that ghosts have earned our fear, and that perhaps what lies beyond our lives is only suffering. I have been neither encouraged by tradition, nor have I felt a need to push against it, I have only needed to be honest.

AIPT: Dave, in a press release, you mention how “music and horror…they’re really similar.” Can you talk more about that — how does that play out structurally or in your general approach?

Dave Chisholm: I think the biggest way music and horror reflect each other is in the sheer rhythmic quality of each of them, and just how important timing is with both as well. “Timing” is a weird thing to think about with comics, though, since each reader takes their own pace — but timing can still be reflected in the number of panels on a page, where you put the page breaks, how many panels are on a tier, and so on. It almost becomes symbolic or representative of actual timing, though — I definitely obsess about this aspect of comics storytelling.

The other aspect that shows up in a lot of horror and music is what I call a “bass drop.” It’s like, where you take away something that is normally ubiquitous or expected specifically to create a dramatic moment when it shows up. So, if you have a song that’s just a singer and an acoustic guitar, and then, at two minutes, BAM! The whole band comes in, all fuzzed out, that creates so much more drama than fuzz-all-the-time. If it’s there all the time, it’s not ever there at all, it just becomes part of the fabric of the thing. This shows up in a lot of slow-burn horror — the lull-you-to-sleep pacing, deliberate lack of drama, just a teenager babysitting, or whatever, and then BAM: horror and violence. If it’s all horror and violence, then there is no horror and violence. These dramatic moments are only powerful if they’re surrounded by or at least preceded by their opposite. For this book, you might see some techniques, panel shapes, inking styles, colors, or textures that only show up during horrific or paranormal moments. They gain power through withholding them.

Free for All

Writer-artist Patrick Horvath

Due Out: Spring 2025

Premise: In a world of vast wealth inequality, the World Finance League offers billionaires and trillionaires a choice: “donate half of their assets to the common good — or defend them in ritual combat.” Ted Brooks is the WFL’s most winningest combatant — until he’s forced to battle his ex-wife.

AIPT: How has your relationship with this story evolved over the last decade or so, and how do you feel about it being extra relevant right now?

Patrick Horvath: Good question. I initially came up with this story as a way to work through a lot of hard feelings in the wake of the 2016 election. The fact that the U.S. finds itself in a strange echo of that moment at the same time this project is actually finding publication is so surreal to me. I feel like I zeroed-in on something that felt like such an obvious failing of modern society (specifically the humanitarian fallout of income inequality), and now find that it’s metastasized. In a weird way, it’s sort of confirmed that I had my finger on a kernel of truth with this one.

AIPT: Do you see this as a kind of love story amid all the messaging and politics?

PH: I do. I think the love story is the universal part to all of it. The hook of billionaire / trillionaire gladiators fighting to the death felt like such a fun venue for satire, but I wanted to have something at the story’s core that transcended it a bit. I always felt like that divide between the “haves” and “have nots” could be boiled down to love and the strength of one’s faith in it.

The Goddamn Tragedy

Writer Chris Condon and artist Shawn Kuruneru

Due Out: May 2025

Premise: What really happened to the Donner Party of 1846? Ellen Janson will “set the record straight” about her family’s battle with the elements and whether “their journey become nothing more than another goddamn tragedy.”

AIPT: Chris, how does this tale compare in terms of tone, feel, etc. to your other “westerns,” The Enfield Gang Massacre and That Texas Blood?

Chris Condon: Well, I wrote all of them, so I think there’s going to be certain similarities regardless. I try to allow for visuals to take the lead in the way that I write scripts, and The Goddamn Tragedy was no exception, especially seeing as I would be working with a phenomenal artist like Shawn Kuruneru on the book. I wanted to allow him room to showcase what he does well. So the short answer: if you liked The Enfield Gang Massacre or That Texas Blood, you’ll probably enjoy The Goddamn Tragedy.

AIPT: Shawn, press for the book mentions “lavishly destructive painted artwork.” Can you expand on that and your art style/approach for this specific book?

Shawn Kuruneru: I chose to approach The Goddamn Tragedy using pencil, ink wash and digital watercolours. The environments in Western stories are always rough and I wanted my drawings to reflect that. Pencil on watercolour paper retains a roughness in the line work, while the ink wash gives the mood and shadows an organic quality. I used warm colours in the beginning of the book to ease the reader into the story, and when the threat of danger becomes more apparent, the colours become colder until they, like the character’s sense of hope, fade away.