Prepare for a shocking ride in this first look at CRUEL UNIVERSE #3 from Oni Press and EC Comics, Available October 2nd.

The press release follows:

Media Release -- Just in time for Halloween, Oni Press is calling the latest electric EC comic forth from the beyond! On October 2nd, the sinister and successful return of the iconic EC Comics imprint continues in CRUEL UNIVERSE #3 – armed with one of our most craven casts of creators and time-distorted tales yet!

Ahead of the arrival of our third twisted tome of sci-fi stunners, Oni Press and EC Comics are proud to present a first look inside the all-new story “Automated” from rising star J. Holtham (The Horizon Experiment) and unstoppable artist Kano (Gotham Central) as a billionaire inventor grapples with the true prices of technological innovation at any cost…

Plus: The world's most existentially devastating comic magazine plumbs new depths in CRUEL UNIVERSE #3 as the otherworldly talents of Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun) and David Rubín (Sherlock Frankenstein), Ben H. Winters (The Last Policeman) and Carson Thorn (XINO) and Zac Thompson (Cemetery Kids Don’t Die) and Dan McDaid (If You Find This…) begin a manned expedition to the extremes of human existence and imagine the terrifying possibilities of what to expect when the best of intentions meet the cold, hard reality of our worst instincts. The world and everything you hold dear within it may be doomed to the cold touch of entropy . . . BUT AT LEAST YOU CAN KEEP THIS COMIC AS A SOUVENIR!

Featuring covers by Eisner Award winner Greg Smallwood (The Human Target), Eisner Award winner Dave Johnson (Superman: Red Son), Ringo Award nominee Jay Stephens (Dwellings) and Eisner Award nominee Rian Hughes (The Multiversity), give yourself over to science fiction that stings in CRUEL UNIVERSE #3 – on sale October 2nd!











CRUEL UNIVERSE #3 (of 5)
WRITTEN BY CULLEN BUNN, J. HOLTHAM, ZAC THOMPSON & BEN H. WINTERS
ART BY KANO, DAN McDAID, DAVID RUBÍN, CARSON THORN
COVER A BY GREG SMALLWOOD
COVER B BY DAVE JOHNSON
HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS
ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY DAVE JOHNSON
ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY RIAN HUGHES

ON SALE OCTOBER 2nd, 2024 | $4.99 | 32 PGS | FC
IOC: 8/29/2024
FOC: 9/9/2024

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.