Oni Press Solicitations May 2023

As of this month (or as of three months from now, more like it) Popgeeks is covering the solicitations of Oni Press! Here’s what you can look forward to this May from the Portland-based publisher (where all good comics are made)…

We covered LAMENTATION in an article earlier, but it’s worth repeating again. Everyone’s anticipating Razide’s Lament, the new play at the Requiem Theatre, but no one’s more excited than the lead actress, who considers it her big break. But as the days of rehearsal pass by, she gets eerie feelings as to what’s going on. The director is constantly angry, and his scripts are continually revised, becoming darker and more violent. And when she thinks about it, did her landing this job feel a little TOO easy? Is it too late to look for a different vocation? (Yes.) The first of three issues will be released May 3.

Even though the cover says #5, Oni has held the RICK AND MORTY license for quite a while. We’re just now joining the current storyline in progress (which given the show, could be anything). It happens to be Rick at the mercy of an easily agitated tech bro who has imprisoned him in space for the crime of denying his friend request. While the universe would actually be safer with Rick locked up, the status quo must be restored, and it’s up to Summer to find a way to rescue him, as Morty is preoccupied with his own problems. Rick and Morty #5 will be released May 24.

Is it possible to make a found-footage horror film….as a comic book? Writer Christopher Sebela and artists Hayden Sherman and Nick Filardi team up to find out if it can be done with BLINK. It concerns Wren Booker, a grown orphan searching for her origins, who finally finds the dark hallways she’s been seeing in her dreams. And while the building seems abandoned at first glance…it’s not! Wren is being watched and the experiment is still going. All 128 pages of BLINK will be released in one volume May 17.

From author Joe Flood comes KNEE DEEP, an apocalyptic thriller about a young girl searching for her family. You know how most stories of this type establish that after the fall of civilization, mankind build a new community somewhere else and basically started over? In Knee Deep, they attempted to do this but failed. Maybe they shouldn’t have built their community in the sewer, hmm? Anyway, the first volume of Knee Deep will be released May 31.

Oni’s full list of May releases can be browsed below.

Lamentation #1 (of 3)

• Written by CULLEN BUNN
• Art by ARJUNA SUSINI
• Colors by HILARY JENKINS
• Cover A by MAAN HOUSE
• Cover B by YANICK PAQUETTE
• Cover C by KYLE HOTZ
• Full Art Variant (1:10) by MAAN HOUSE
• B&W Variant (1:15) by YANICK PAQUETTE
• B&W Variant (1:20) by KYLE HOTZ
• ON-SALE MAY 3, 2023 | $6.99 | 48 pgs. | FULL COLOR

From the mind’s eye of master storyteller Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun, Basilisk) and rising star Arjuna Susini (Made Men) comes a darkly glamorous tale of bone-splintering terror at the intersection of shadow and light… dream and nightmare… life and the grim specter of Death himself.

After weeks of grueling rehearsals, a new production is set to begin at the famed Requiem theatre: Razide’s Lament, three acts of gothic horror set inside a haunted castle with a story that some say is more than mere fantasy. Under the stern rule of a dedicated but temperamental director, the script seems to be ever-changing, and, more mysterious still, our lead actress has found herself cast in the role of a lifetime without so much as an audition.

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/3/2023

Rick and Morty #5

• Written by ALEX FIRER
• Art/Cover A by MARC ELLERBY
• Cover B by FRED C. STRESING
• ON-SALE MAY 24, 2023 | $3.99 | 32 pgs. | FULL COLOR

After Rick denied his friend request, hyper tech-bro Glug Vronksy took it personally and imprisoned our hero in fancy space jail. Meanwhile, Rick-less, slightly losing his mind, and somehow working for Vronsky, Morty continues the search for his lost girlfriend, Noelle, but is a bit preoccupied with cleaning a giant dog. Who will attempt to save Rick from space jail? Who?! S-Summer…it’s Summer.

The all-new ongoing series continues!

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/24/2023

Rick and Morty Presents: Maximum Overture #1

• Written by BROCKTON MCKINNEY
• Art/Cover A by JARRETT WILLIAMS
• Cover B by PRISCILLA TRAMONTANO
• ON-SALE MAY 17, 2023 | $5.99 | 40 pgs. | FULL COLOR

Rick and Morty find themselves in the mad composer’s clutches and must weather Concerto’s orchestral onslaught while trying to figure out what any of this have to do with Rick. Can they survive this macabre musical death race, or will Concerto compose the Rick and Morty Requiem?

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/17/2023

Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters Vol. 3

• Written by CHRIS SAMNEE & LAURA SAMNEE
• Artist/Cover by CHRIS SAMNEE
• ON-SALE MAY 3, 2023 | $12.99 | 120 pgs. | FULL COLOR

In the final arc of our incredible tale, we learn the origins of the strange creatures that have invaded the planet, draining it of resources—as well as that of fellow adventurers Gor and Nomi. All the threads converge inside the mysterious giant egg! With the fate of their family and possibly the whole world at stake, can Jonna and Rainbow rescue their dad, battle countless monsters, and tell each other how they really feel?

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/3/2023

Memento Mori

• Writer/Artist/Cover by TIITU TAKALO
• ON-SALE MAY 24, 2023 | $24.99 | 232 pgs. | FULL COLOR

In Memento Mori, celebrated Finnish graphic novelist Tiitu Takalo chronicles her sudden, unexpected cerebral hemorrhage and the long road to recovery she had to travel.

It is a dramatic story about a life turned upside down overnight: a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, the days and nights spent in an intensive care unit, and the long, painful recovery that led the artist to reflect on her life both past and present.

Much more than a story of survival, Memento Mori is a philosophical and psychological journey told with exceptional honesty and compassion. A deeply moving and insightful graphic novel from a master of the medium that is also ultimately a celebration of life.

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/24/2023

Blink

• Written by CHRISTOVER SEBELA
• Artist/Cover by HAYDEN SHERMAN
• ON-SALE MAY 17, 2023 | $21.99 | 128 pgs. | FULL COLOR

Wren Booker was three when she was found alone and covered in blood on the streets of New York. Since that day, she’s been haunted by the childhood she can’t remember…until decades later when she finds a cryptic website streaming multiple CCT feeds from strange rooms in a ruined building. Something clicks, setting off hidden memories that lead her back to a place she’s seen in lifelong nightmares. Hunting for answers, Wren breaks in and finds herself lost in the camera-filled dark mazes of a decayed social experiment known only as BLINK…which she quickly discovers is not abandoned at all. But what should be a foreign nightmare-scape feels all too familiar for Wren as she follows her obsession all the way down, piecing together the story of BLINK—as well as her own ties to it.

Eisner-nominated Christopher Sebela (Dirtbag Rapture), Hayden Sherman (Dark Spaces: Wildfire), and Nick Filardi (Rogue Planet) team up for a found-footage horror where uncovering your past will leave you trapped inside it.

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 4/17/2023

Knee Deep: Book One

• Writer/Artist/Cover by JOE FLOOD
• ON-SALE MAY 31, 2023 | $21.99 | 224 pgs. | FULL COLOR

Two hundred years in the future, the survivors of an environmental cataclysm took refuge underground. Their descendants now live in a literal sewer, the bowels of a subterranean city–an abandoned future utopia–that was never completed. These sewerfolk, a collection of scavengers, misfits, bandits, renegades, and mutants, eke out a living in this underground maze of tunnels and canals.

Life is hard enough, but an overzealous mining company, PERCH, wants to get their claws on this new underground frontier. And they won’t hesitate to bulldoze any sewerfolk that get in their way.

Caught in the middle is Cricket, a young girl desperately searching for her family that fled underground. Join Cricket as she explores this savage new world to find her parents and unlock the secrets of a past long forgotten in the three-part graphic novel series, KNEE DEEP.

• IOD: 3/23/2023
• FOC: 5/1/2023