EX.MAG anthology rises from the grave with BLOODSUCKER

Peow2 resurrects the Ex.Mag series for a new book: Bloodsucker. Yes, the themed global comics anthology has burst from its grave to declare volume V is for vampires. Its Kickstarter campaign ends on June 19^th, 2024 – which now in its last two weeks is nearing 300% funded.

The series is once again edited by P & W of Peow Studio (RIP), now Peow2: Wren Mcdonald and Patrick Crotty. And as usual, it boasts a mix of familiar faces and new names doing sweetly weird duochrome indie comics, a range of styles united in (vampiric) vision.

Bloodsucker

Bloodsucker has a short story from Jane Mai, comics from Luca Oliveri and Mel Tow, and illustrations by Loïc Locatelli-Kournswky.

And then a host of folks new to working with Peow2: Dodleyz did a poster, Gobli Prin and Theo Stultz did the cover. Bani-Chan did the dust jacket that’s exclusive to the Kickstarter campaign. There are illustrations from Akino Kogomi and goth legend Takato Yamamoto.

And comics! There are stories a dozen (or two) pages in length from Blind Alley and The Gulf‘s Adam de Souza, Chariospirale, Matthew Houston, Marko K Gavez, Nozmo, Castlevania animator Ryan Plaisance and Morgan Nix, Tia Roxae, Theo Stultz, and Tyler Landry.

If you’ve wanted to read the previous volumes of Ex.Mag but haven’t had the chance yet, there are digital add-ons of each issue available through the Bloodsucker Kickstarter campaign. Previous volumes have been curated around the themes of cyberpunk, paranormal romance, dark fantasy, and mecha. Each is a different duochrome printing and features incredible underground artists.

If I had to characterize the spirit of Peow2 comics, I would say they’re united by frequently surprising and sometimes very heavy turns of story, and the story is probably some kind of SFF or speculative fiction. A genre comic you’d never recognize as such at first glance and then loathe to reduce it down to after you finish reading. They feature a cartoonist-leaning range of aesthetics, probably closest right now to Silver Sprocket; more rebel zine style than Avery Hill, more genre-adherent than Koyama Press.

In 2020 I called Ex.Mag a First Second approach to comics from Dark Horse. Manga, anime, and video games are more of an influence than superheroes and Saturday morning cartoons. They’re printmakers, so the book is on satisfyingly pulpy paper (yes, that is a thing), done with a specifically chosen color pairing, cool pull-out poster and dust jacket, satisfying book design.

Peow2

Peow2 is part of a wave of micro-press crowdfunding publishing, where instead of the funds going to enable the creation of the book, it’s more like a preorder service for something already created that guarantees the ability to publish. Bloodsucker will be sent to the printers once the campaign wraps, and ship in autumn.

Peow2 has crowdfunded the previous four Ex.Mags, and their latest comeback art book from Natalie Anderson successfully funded earlier this year. Cool comics will never die, they are doomed to stalk the earth forever.

You can invite Ex.Mag Vol. V: Bloodsucker in on Kickstarter until Juneteenth 2024.