At Comic-Con this year, I discovered Killadelphia. Lured into the “Monsters Are for Everyone” panel by the presence of my friend Shannon Eric Denton, I appreciated panelist Rodney Barnes proving the adage, write the thing you want to see. Disappointed as a kid by Blacula, he wanted a vampire story more representative of the world he knew.
After years of a successful career as a producer and writer in Hollywood (with a few successful comics as well), Barnes created Killadelphia with artist Jason Shawn Alexander. This is the vampire story he wanted to see, and from the other panelists’ murmurs of appreciation, I knew I should have read it long ago. It’s compelling, it’s chilling, and as each volume progresses, its world gets bigger and darker. Plus Alexander’s art is moodily realistic, walking back and forth over the line between noir and outright horror. There was the upside to having not tried it before — I could gulp it down, though the volumes I read only had bits and pieces of another story, Elysium Gardens.
Both stories tie together, Killadelphia focusing on vampires, while Elysium Gardens establishes the werewolves of this world. And both rip bare the shame in U.S. history — the enslavement of African people. The initial villain may be surprising, yet feels right. Barnes weaves in history, folklore, a smidgen of science, and a decent hard-boiled detective thriller.
All this is to say that the timing of Image’s announcement of a hardcover edition of the first two arcs is bittersweet. I already read it and loved it. Of course, that means I can buy this edition and read it and love it all over again. No hype here, just fact: it’s a hell of a good book. The story isn’t done yet, but with each page of reading, it was hard not to imagine a great TV streaming series coming from it. Sure enough, one is in development. Be ahead of the game. Order this at your local comics shop.
Oh, and Barnes recently founded a graphic novel studio — Zombie Love Studios. One of its upcoming projects? Blacula.
From Image Comics:
The Eisner Award nominated horror title Killadelphia by Rodney Barnes (writer behind Marvel’s Runaways, STARZ’s American Gods, HBO’s Winning Time) and artist Jason Shawn Alexander (Spawn) will get the hardcover treatment. Killadelphia Deluxe Hardcover Book One will hit shelves this November from Image Comics and will collect the first 12 issues of the popular series, plus all five chapters of the terrifying werewolf tie-in story Elysium Gardens.
The Killadelphia series follows a small-town beat cop who returns home to bury his murdered father, revered Philadelphia detective James Sangster Sr. What he doesn’t anticipate is digging up a mystery that will lead him down a path of horrors and shake his beliefs to their core. The city that was once the symbol of liberty and freedom has fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality… and vampires. Now, it’s up to Jimmy and an unexpected companion to stop long-thought-dead president of the United States John Adams from building an undead army and staging a bloody new American revolution.
Killadelphia Deluxe Hardcover Book One (ISBN: 978-1534323490, Diamond Code JUL220106) will be available on Wednesday, November 16 and in bookstores on Tuesday, November 22.
