IDW BRINGS CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED GRAPHIC NOVEL
VIOLENT MESSIAHS: THE BOOK OF JOB BACK TO BOOKSHELVES
(San Diego, CA; October 28, 2008) – Following a highly successful run, rendering the book out of print, IDW Publishing heralds in the long awaited return of Hurricane Entertainment's Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job. It tells a complex and layered tale about the fictional city of Rankor Island and the cops, killers, and vigilantes who inhabit it.
It will be followed in December by Volume II—Violent Messiahs: Lamenting Pain. This installment collects the second story arc - a brand-new, never-before-seen Citizen Pain story, as well as other bonus materials.
Created by acclaimed writer Joshua Dysart (Unknown Soldier, Hellboy - BPRD:1946) and William O’Neill (John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles), Violent Messiahs is scripted by Dysart with dynamic artwork by Tone Rodriguez (Snake Plissken, Urban Monsters) and hyper-realistic coloring by Travis Smith (Slayer, Resident Evil: Apocalypse).
"This was my first comic book ever, and it has all the joys that come with a first work," Dysart says. "Written between jobs in restaurants and bookstores, during a period of tumultuous relationships and, quite frankly, a lot of drug use, it seems now, in retrospect, to be the very spirit of my youth, that is, angry, dark, glorious, ambitious, cocky and ultimately, hungry to be about something greater than itself." Subsequently Dysart has written for every major publisher in the comics industry, on such luminary titles as Swamp Thing, The Age of Conan and Hellboy: BPRD 1946. He's adapted Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Deepak Chopra’s Buddha. He's written Avril Lavigne’s - Make 5 Wishes and for his most recent project Unknown Soldier Dysart spent a month researching in Uganda.
Beyond the masked men, cops with checkered pasts, and trappings of crime, Violent Messiahs takes an unflinching look at some of life’s most fundamental questions. As a film-noir, urban retelling of "Frankenstein" crossbred with "Beauty and the Beast" it delves even further into the ideas of social control, "heroism", and violence. It also takes a unique look at theology, while combining sci-fi elements like indestructible clones and dark conspiracies. The story takes a genre- bending look at some of our most basic human flaws.
At the center of the story is Lieutenant Cheri Major, a woman obsessed with doing away with crime and the two killers plaguing her city. Yet each of the two men serve a seemingly higher purpose, the stitch-masked vigilante "Citizen Pain," who murders criminals and, the serial killer "Family Man", who slaughters parents he deems "unfit." But what Cheri doesn’t know is the link between these two and the secret society they represent. Yet while one is an outcast and the other an agent of this megalomaniacal cabal, both are ultimately serving their programming and searching for their true selves.
O'Neill dreamt up Citizen Pain in a small sketch book, while in art school over 15 years ago. "Citizen Pain has been with me for a long time. IDW is an excellent company and they print some of the best books out today. I couldn’t be more thrilled that they are the new home for Violent Messiahs. With The Dark Knight and The Watchmen in the public mind there couldn’t be a better time to reintroduce our Warrior Poet to the world."
Nominated for a Harvey Award, Wizard Fan Award, and the prestigious Eisner’s Russ Manning Award the graphically compelling and poetic, Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job is a strange and twisted look at morality and the complex role of violence in our lives. The book is a thoughtful commentary on the ability of the individual to create their own reality and ultimately be redeemed by love.
Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job hits shelves in October 2008.
TPB • FC • 224 pages • 6.625” x 10.187”• $24.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60010-251-6
About IDW
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, Calif. As a leader in the horror, action, and sci-fi genres, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry including: television's #1 prime time series CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; Paramount's Star Trek; Fox's Angel; Hasbro's The Transformers, and the BBC's Doctor Who. IDW's original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film in its first week of release. In April 2008, IDW released Michael Recycle, the first title from its new children's book imprint, Worthwhile Books. More information about the company can be found at http://www.idwpublishing.com.
