The Panic Arrives Digitally from Comixology Originals May 3, 2022
and in Print from Dark Horse Books in November 2022
March 22, 2022—New York, NY / Portland, OR—Comixology Originals announces The Panic, a dark psychological thriller by writer Neil Kleid (Ninety Candles, Kings and Canvas) and artist Andrea Mutti (Maniac of New York). The Panic issue #1 (of 5) debuts on May 3, 2022 from Comixology Originals, the exclusive digital content line of Comixology, an Amazon company.
“The Panic is a story about the loss of security and control of one‘s surroundings . . . about emotionally navigating the moment after something terrible happens, especially if you don‘t know what caused it,” says writer Neil Kleid. “The specifics of the inciting incident—why a train crashed, who is shooting, what exploded—become less important than the sinking feeling in the pit of one‘s belly, that sense of dread and unease when your personal world is upended and tossed into terrible conditions via unknown means…that…panic inside which drives all decisions to come, logical or ill-advised.”
In The Panic, ten strangers become trapped on a PATH train beneath the Hudson River when their car comes to an unforeseen halt. They are forced to depend on each of their fellow commuters in order to survive. Things go very wrong as they work their way above ground and those left must fight their way through more than rubble to make it to safety. But the darkness is closing in, and with it their own individual fears and paranoia—along with cultural, racial, and political biases. It’ll be a long road to the end of the tunnel . . . that is if they don‘t kill each other before they get there.
Kleid continued, “The Panic is not only my first real stab at a horror comic, but a brutal love letter to New York and New Jersey. And both myself and my ultra-talented co-author, Andrea Mutti, hope you—and our desperate characters—make it to the light.”
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Dark Horse, the legendary comic book publisher of titles including Black Hammer, Hellboy, Sin City and The Umbrella Academy, will publish The Panic, collecting all five issues, for the first time in print this November. The Panic [Dark Horse Books/ 136 pages / color/ on sale November 8, 2022 / MSRP $19.99/$25.99 / ISBN 978-1-50672807-0]. The book is available for pre-order at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and your local comic shop.
About the Creators:
Neil Kleid is the Xeric-award winning graphic novelist who authored Ninety Candles, a graphic novella about life, death, legacy and comics, as well as Brownsville and The Big Kahn for NBM Publishing. He has written for nearly every publisher in the comic book industry, adapted Jack London’s Call of the Wild into sequentials for Penguin Books/Puffin Graphics, did the opposite for Marvel Comics’ seminal Spider-Man storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and co-authored (with Brian Michael Bendis) Powers: The Secret History of Deena Pilgrim for MacMillan Books, the first-ever original prose novel based on the award-winning comic book; Savor, his new adventure graphic novel (with John Broglia and Frank Reynoso) debuted in 2021 from Dark Horse Comics, and he is co-authoring Screaming for Vengeance, a sci-fi graphic novel based on the acclaimed album by heavy metal icons Judas Priest, alongside Rantz Hoseley, Chris Mitten and Dee Cunniffe for Z2 Comics. Neil is a trained product designer with twenty years of experience, having created experiences for clients such as Girl Scouts, Clarks Shoes and The Topps Company. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, kids, dog, grill.
Andrea Mutti is an acclaimed Italian artist who has worked for Marvel Comics/Entertainment, DC Comics, Vertigo, Dark Horse Comics, BOOM! Studios, Image, Dynamite Entertainment, and more!
