Oni Press is way excited to announce the
release of Matthew Loux (F-STOP)’s gnarly new graphic novel SIDESCROLLERS -- a hilarious
story of friendship, small town desperation, a pack of scouts, summer, God
cats, Satanic cats, football, Street Fighter, junk food, romance, rock, and
roll.
Brian, Brad, and Matt are three best
friends who have stuck with each other through thick and thin, despite the fact
that they love to tease each other constantly. It’s a sweet summer off from the
bummers of high school in their small boring suburban town in Connecticut. They
are the losers at their high school, the oddities of their town. When they’re
not working at the local fast food joint, you can find them either playing
video games, eating junk food, or collecting comics.
“SIDESCROLLERS is a story about the kids
who in school were considered either the nerds or the screw-ups,” explained
Loux. “These three guys are best friends going nowhere, but they’re totally
okay with that. Until of course, one fateful day when life takes them on an
unexpected adventure they will never forget.”
This day starts out like any other, with an
innocent game of Street Fighter. But trouble brews when our perpetual losers
discover that the new girl in town, Amber (of whom Matt is sweet on) is going
to the big local rock show that night with Richard, the epitome of perverted,
mean, and annoying high school football jocks. Our three heroes suspect that
Richard (or “Dick”, as he is known to them) has some creepy plans for the
innocent girl he is preying on, and so they take action in the best way high
schoolers can: by vandalizing his car!
Oni editor, Randal Jarrell describes the
book as, “having all the absurdity of BETTER OFF DEAD coupled with the
end-of-school slacker hurrah that we saw in DAZED AND CONFUSED.”
“The thing I really love about
SIDESCROLLERS, is how much it reminds me of my own high school experiences,”
claimed Oni Press editorial assistant Douglas Sherwood. “Even though the boys
never step foot in a high school, I take more away from this book than any
episode of SAVED BY THE BELL could ever give me. I grew up in a smaller town,
and really had to look for fun because it never found me. My friends and I were
also sort of outcasts, and so we spent our time screwing around with the hot
shots of the school in various devious ways. So working on this book has been
nothing but a complete joy for me, and I think anybody who had fun during the
summers between high school years will have nothing but complete joy while
reading it.”
SIDESCROLLERS goes on to follow the boys
throughout the day as they run from “Dick”, but all they can find is more
trouble as Brian gets beat up by a bunch of female scouts, and a cat possessed
by Satan begins stalking Brad. All the while the football team is hot on their
trail.
SIDESCROLLERS is listed in the current
PREVIEWS and will ship to comic book stores September 29th, 2006. It features 208
pages of black and white story and art, and will retail for $11.95, with the
Diamond Order Code: JUL06 3349 and an ISBN of 1-932664-50-5
