Vault Comics has officially announced Athanasia, a chilling, genre-bending graphic novel from bestselling horror author Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water, Whalefall) and visionary artist Dani (Arkham City, Coffin Bound), with colors by Brad Simpson, letters by Jim Campbell, and design by Tim Daniel. Clocking in at 256 pages and arriving this October, Athanasia is poised to be one of the most haunting takes on the superhero mythos in years.
Set in Venture City, the story follows Forrest Molson, a young woman trying to stay sober while working as an assistant groundskeeper at Athanasia Cemetery—the final resting place of the city’s fallen superheroes. But when she uncovers a terrifying secret—an oozing substance leaking from the corpses of the buried heroes—her battle with addiction is reignited in horrifying new ways. Using the ooze to gain unpredictable powers, Forrest spirals into a vigilante crusade, blurring the line between justice and monstrosity.
For Kraus, Athanasia was six years in the making, born out of a failed superhero pitch to a major publisher that evolved into something much darker and more personal. “My brain went ‘superhero cemetery,’” he recalled. “What would happen to the soil if you buried superheroes close together? Very quickly, the answer led me down a story path toward addiction, and the lengths we go to excuse our behaviors.”
Though deeply rooted in the superhero genre, Kraus is clear this isn’t a tale of capes and glory. “I had no interest in heroism on a major scale. It was only small, personal acts of heroism that interested me,” he said. “The larger sense of heroism as it applies to superheroes has always felt simplistic and overly optimistic to me.”
For artist Dani, the project struck an unexpectedly personal chord during a difficult time in her life:
“When I was approached by Daniel Kraus and got introduced to the world of Athanasia, I was in a weird place in my life. Was taking care of my grandmother who was bedbound and in the last months of her life and my parents were sick and trapped abroad during COVID. Reading about Forrest’s story hit me hard.
This book is about family issues, battling with addiction and struggling for inner balance. Also, Daniel and I share the same approach to the superhero genre and its darker layers so this was a project I instantly knew I wanted to be a part of.
The relationships Daniel created in this book are so delicate and fragile. As an artist, showcasing this through my linework was important so I took the creative choice of renewing my normal style of heavy blocks of ink and replacing it with textured pen scratches. This doubled the workload considering the length of the book but was totally worth it. Pairing that with Brad Simpson’s excellent color choices and we ended up with a visual I’ll always be proud of.
Athanasia was living with me for almost two years during its creation and changed me as a person, whereas my collaboration with Daniel and Brad helped me evolve as an artist. Hopefully, it will awaken and soothe parts of the reader too.”
Athanastia will be available this October in comic shops and bookstores everywhere. Scroll down for a first look at the unlettered preview.
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