Comics
Review: The Superannuated Man #1
Teeming with gorgeous black and white illustrations, “The Superannuated Man” #1 is one hell of a teaser. This post apocalyptic comic takes place in an “unspecified future” in Blackwater, a seaside town that’s been overrun by mutant animals. As HE, a lone human among the insane creatures of Blackwater, lives a life of solitude in a makeshift houseboat, the mutants are facing their own unidentified threat.
WRITTEN BY: Ted McKeever
ART BY: Ted McKeever
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: June 4, 2013
REVIEW BY: Bree Odgen
“The Superannuated Man” is both haunting and cleverly witty. Our protagonist, HE, is exactly as the title of the comic suggests: an outdated concept. He is obsolete in this new future full of advanced mutant animals—like human-sized frogs and anthropological rhinoceroses. HE is a quirky hermit who lives on the water and snorkels around to scare the frog children who get too close. To the mutants, HE is a threat, an urban legend, a mythical beast.
Against the bleak speculative fiction backdrop of Blackwater, HE’s personality is light as a feather. Contrasted with the manically bizarre personalities of the mutants, he looks sane and well grounded—even when he carries on conversations with an inanimate man. McKeever has successfully and entertainingly made crazy look sane and insane look even crazier.
Both the beasts we explicitly see and the beasts that are merely hinted at are perfection alike. They’re so insane that they are almost funny, but more than anything they are disturbing as hell. This is just another testament of McKeever’s wild ability to round out characters like a rockstar.
My initial reaction after reading was a very firm, “The hell?” As I said, this is a teaser issue, a prologue of sorts. It’s set up to present us with a lot of questionable information without answering anything. But McKeever completely kills it regardless. It’s overwhelmingly clear that the creator, writer, and illustrator are one and the same. The written world and artistic world are woven together so tightly with the concept that although the material is confusing, it’s not confusing in a negative sense. It’s fantastically chaotic. I appreciate the fact that McKeever trusts his readers to follow along with his bold storytelling.
McKeever accomplishes something brilliant in this first issue that’s so rarely done. He really lets the art tell the story. There is a bold lack of written narrative yet the plot is heavy and detailed, impeccably constructed through the exhaustive images. “The Superannuated Man” is off to a superb start. The possibilities of this comic are endless. While the dystopian elements haunt, the fantasy elements entertain on a grand scale.
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
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