Experience the enduring influence of EC Comics with EC COMICS PRESENTS BLOOD TYPE #0 - a special edition for Free Comic Book Day, heralding the second year of EC Comics' spectacular revival at Oni Press.
The press release follows:
Media Release -- First: EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS plunged to the heart of 21st-century terror. Then: CRUEL UNIVERSE hurtled you to the brink of oblivion. Soon: CRUEL KINGDOM throws wide the forbidden gateway to mayhem and magic. And next summer: The immortal legacy of EC Comics etches an all-new milestone into the annals of comics history with EC COMICS PRESENTS BLOOD TYPE #0 – a special Free Comic Book Day release setting the stage for the second stunning year of EC Comics' blockbuster resurrection at Oni Press with a look ahead at the first-ever, serialized limited series spinning out of the pages of EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS … and much more yet to come!
"Very early on in the planning stages of what would become our hugely successful resurgence of the EC Comics line at Oni Press, we challenged ourselves with a series of provocative questions," said Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinsion. "What kinds of stories would EC be telling today? What new genres would they have pioneered across the decades? And how would EC's disruptive energy shatter and reshape the conventions of comics storytelling in the modern day? BLOOD TYPE is our answer to many of those questions – and a true first for the EC history as a tried-and-true anthology tale from the pages of EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS expands outward in new and unexpected ways. We're not saying any more until 2025 – some secrets are worth waiting for!"
OUT OF THE PAGES OF EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS ... BLOOD TYPE IS BORN! Before she rises from the grave and stakes her claim to EC's landmark, first-ever solo series this summer, re-discover the perilous first appearance of the blood-thirsty, bon vivant vampire always in search of a good time ... and a fresh kill! Plus: An encore presentation of some of this year's most shocking, fan-favorite EC Comics stories from EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS, CRUEL UNIVERSE and CRUEL KINGDOM from creators Corinna Bechko (Green Lantern: Earth One) & Jonathan Case (Green River Killer), Matt Kindt (BRZRKR, Mind MGMT) & Kano (Gotham Central), and more with an all-new cover by Eisner Award nominee Tyler Crook (Harrow County, Out of Alctraz) ... and an exclusive look ahead at next summer's sinister wave of horrifying new EC Comics titles!
Full creative details for BLOOD TYPE #1 – coming soon from EC Comics and Oni Press – will be revealed in the New Year, heh heh. See you on Free Comic Book Day 2025, fellow ghouls!
EC COMICS PRESENTS BLOOD TYPE #0
WRITTEN BY CORRINA BECHKO, MATT KINDT & MORE
ART BY JONATHAN CASE, KANO & MORE
IN STORES MAY 3rd, 2025 | FREE | 32 PGS. | FC
About Oni Press
Founded in 1997, Oni Press has a 25-year history as one of the industry's most respected and acclaimed publishers of award-winning comic books and graphic novels with titles including Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, K. O'Neill's Tea Dragon Society, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun, Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer, Ezra Clayton Daniels' Upgrade Soul, Brenna Thummler's Sheets trilogy, and many hundreds more. In 2019, Oni Press merged with Lion Forge Comics – the Eisner Award-winning independent comic book publisher founded by Academy Award-winning producer and entrepreneur David Steward II – to create one of the largest, independent libraries of comics content anywhere in media. The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group now exists as a publishing subsidiary of Steward's diversified global media company, Polarity.
The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group publishes more than 60 original and licensed graphic novels annually, in addition to an extensive list of periodical comics.
About EC Comics
As the birthplace of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, MAD MAGAZINE, WEIRD SCIENCE, and more of the most influential and celebrated comic series ever published, EC Comics has cemented itself as one of the central nerves of American pop culture with a legacy that spans more than seven decades. From 1944 to 1956, EC – established as "Educational Comics" by founder M.C. Gaines and later rebranded "Entertaining Comics" under the leadership of Publisher & Editor William M. Gaines – led a creative renaissance for the comics industry that, for the first time, elevated the once-derided comics medium into the echelons of English literature and high art. Heralded as "one of the great explosions of vox-pop literature" by Time Magazine and "fiercely honest, politically adversarial, [and] visually masterful" by The Comics Journal, EC's line of comics books - which collectively sold more than 10 million copies annually at their peak – entertained and informed in equal measure, using brilliantly crafted tales of horror, science fiction, satire, and battlefield conflict to critique and subvert America's dark impulses toward violence, racism, inequity, environmental destruction, and war.
Forcibly shuttered by the Comics Code Authority – a pro-censorship group specifically tasked with eradicating EC's illuminating influence from the American comic book industry – in 1956, EC's unique brand of subversive storytelling lived on through the continued success of MAD Magazine, which would fuel American counterculture through the death of Publisher William M. Gaines in 1992. EC's titles and stories have been adapted in a number of media – including the long-running HBO's long-running TALES FROM THE CRYPT franchise of television series and feature films – and continue to be celebrated by multiple generations of comic creators, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians as a seminal influence.
Today, EC Comics' canon of classic stories can continuously be found in print through new editions at Dark Horse Comics, TASCHEN, Fantagraphics, and IDW Publishing. In 2024, EC announced a new partnership with multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher Oni Press to produce the first all-new EC Comics titles in nearly 70 years.
