Oni Press and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. are excited to unveil a sneak peek at "Ham Radio," a story by Melissa Flores and Claire Roe, featured in CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #2 (of 12).

The press release follows:

Media Release -- EMBRACE OBVILION AS YOUR PHYSICAL BODY SACRIFICES ITSELF … ALL IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE! Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997, and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. are proud to reveal a first look at the story "Ham Radio" by Melissa Flores (Power Rangers Prime) and Claire Roe (Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special) from CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #2 (of 12) – the next installment of the Eisner Award-nominated science-fiction anthology series featuring a stellar group of creators forcing readers beyond the brink of reality itself!

For millennia, mankind has earned to explore the stars. Foolish humans—that was your first mistake! Like a stray space capsule that's unexpectedly escaped our solar system and is now cursed to rocket forward at ever-escalating velocities that will slowly reduce its crew to a slick film of goo, EC Comics proudly presents a new roster of callously cosmic tales positively oozing with pain, paranoia, and the pent-up regret of human ambition! To copilot this doomed survey of the stars, join writers Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine), Melissa Flores (Power Rangers Prime), and Dave Wielgosz (Batman: The Brave and the Bold) as they execute the logarithmic calculations that could save our explorers . . . only for the danger-defying artists Sami Kivelä (Abbott), Claire Roe (Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special), and Riley Rossmo (Harley Quinn) to bear witness to inescapable galactic calamity of their all-too-human hubris. Whoops!

Yes, human, it has been foretold in our data tablets: You will gaze in slackjawed wonder as CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #2 (of 12) crosses the vacuum of space to deliver new allotments of optical ingenuity in the form of comic book covers by Lee Bermejo (Joker), Tom Fowler (Epitaphs from the Abyss), Albert Monteys (Slaughterhouse-Five), and Malachi Ward (Black Hammer: The End) to begin a eons-long rein of EC Comics-inspired cosmic terror! You wanted to live life as a sentient being … Now pay the price in CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #2 (of 12) – on sale September 3rd!

Plus: Also on sale in September from Oni Press and EC Comics – There's no rest for the wicked as CATACOMB OF TORMENT #3 presents three tales of fear and frightful persecution fresher than the bludgeoned corpses in your quiet neighbor's basement! Join our brutally beloved host, the Tormentor, to visit violently vivid vivisections upon our artfully agonizing creators Valeria Burzo (EC's Epitaphs from the Abyss), Ryan Haddock (The Brothers Flick), J. Holtham (Hulu's A Handmaid's Tale), Sami Kivelä (Abbott), Christopher Mitten (Hellboy & The B.P.R.D.) and Joanne Starer (Fire & Ice) as EC's brand-new and all-out brutal horror anthology continues its experiments in human anatomy!

For more updates on Oni Press, visit them on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.











EC CRUEL UNIVERSE 2 #2 (of 12)
WRITTEN BY CHRIS CONDON, MELISSA FLORES & DAVE WIELGOSZ
ART BY SAMI KIVELÄ, CLAIRE ROE & RILEY ROSSMO
COVER A BY LEE BERMEJO
COVER B BY TOM FOWLER
C HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY ALBERT MONTEYS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY TOM FOWLER
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY MALACHI WARD
ON SALE SEPTEMBER 3rd, 2025 | $4.99 | 32 PGS. | FC
IOC: 7/26/2025
FOC: 8/11/2025

CATACOMB OF TORMENT #3
WRITTEN BY J. HOLTHAM, JOANNE STARER, & RYAN HADDOCK
ART BY VALERIA BURZO, SAMI KIVELÄ, & CHRISTOPHER MITTEN
COVER A BY MARK BUCKINGHAM
COVER B BY BJÖRN BARENDS
EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY BJÖRN BARENDS
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTÍN
ON SALE SEPTEMBER 17th, 2025 | $4.99 | 32 PGS. | FC
IOC: 7/26/2025
FOC: 9/17/2025

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.

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