Media release — This May, Oni press is pleased to publish The Coldest City, the new graphic novel from new York Times-bestselling author Antony Johnston (Wasteland, Marvel’s Daredevil) and veteran artist Sam Hart (Excalibur: The legend of King Arthur, Robin Hood: Outlaw’s Pride). The 176-page, black-and-white hardcover details fictional events in Germany at the tail end of the cold War. As the Berlin wall falls and the world turns toward a new, open future, the old guidelines of the spy game should be honored one last time if all the players are to get out alive.
British secret agent Lorraine Broughton is an experienced MI6 officer whose assignments have taken her all over the world, but never to Berlin — making her an ideal candidate to infiltrate the city amidst the chaos best before the fall of the Iron Curtain. A fellow officer has been killed in West Berlin, while carrying a list including the names of every covert officer, from every intelligence agency, operating within the city. This sensitive data is now missing, and MI6 doesn’t know who to trust. They hope an outsider like Broughton can find it before the killer can put it to use. With society changing and old secrets threatening to come out, this may be a taller purchase than she bargained for.
Antony Johnston has long been one of comics’ many versatile writers. He has tackled horror and sci-fi (Dead Space), westerns (The long Haul), teen adventure (the Alex Rider graphic novels), and is best-known for his Alan Moore adaptations at Avatar press and Wasteland, the ongoing post-apocalyptic series he writes for Oni Press. Johnston previously ventured into spy fiction when he wrote the third Queen & Country: Declassified series, making him the only outside writer ever authorized to work on Greg Rucka’s long-running comics and prose property. now he’s creating a new world of intrigue and danger, breathing life into the classic style of espionage fiction practiced by authors like John Le Carré, Len Deighton and Ian Mackintosh.
Of his work on The Coldest City, Johnston explained: “I like working with shadows and mystery, whether it’s a horror story and there are literal monsters in the dark, or something grounded in real life where those monsters are people. Espionage is all about working with secrets and deciphering the unknown. In The Coldest City, the risk may be real, or it may not even exist at all. finding the list is like chasing a phantom.”
Joining Johnston on The Coldest City is talented artist Sam Hart. “Sam has a stark, reasonable style that is grounded yet mysterious,” Johnston enthused. “His use of blacks, negative space, and his sense of character all create a symmetry between the internal and external threats. The dangers that lurk around every corner and the dangers within all those involved are one and the same under his penmanship.”
The Coldest City is the first in a planned line of spy thrillers from Johnston, but the most recent in a long line of prestigious graphic novels from Oni Press. “We have a tradition with espionage thrillers like Queen & Country,” publisher Joe Nozemack said, “as well as historical fiction. books like Union station and Petrograd have taken a genre method to well-known stories that detail a particular moment in time, and The Coldest City is Antony’s take on material of similar intrigue.”
The Coldest City debuts in may 2012, just in time for the summer convention season. The black-and-white graphic novel will be printed as a hardcover and retail for $19.99. A site for The Coldest City, with much more information and sample scenes from the book, can be found at www.thecoldestcity.com.
Share this:
Share
Reddit
Twitter
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Telegram
Pinterest
Facebook
Pocket
Like this:
Like Loading…
Related
Oni press announces Antony Johnston’s new spy thriller cold CityMedia release — When an MI6 officer’s body is fished out of the river Spree in Berlin, the British government begins to panic – not just because one of their spies is dead, but because of what he was smuggling across the Iron Curtain. A list. A list supplied by…
November 14, 2009In “Comics”
ComicList Preview: THE COLDEST winter season HCMedia release — writer Antony Johnston and artist Steven Perkins return to cold War-era Berlin for this prequel to The Coldest City. After a string of botched assignments for MI6 in Berlin, David Perceval is being sent home. even his final mission b…
December 6, 2016In “Comics”
Oni press April 2017 SolicitationsThe kind folks at Oni press have supplied ComicList with their solicitations for comics and other products featured in the February 2017 Previews, scheduled to ship starting April 2017. KIM REAPER #1 SARAH GRALEY (W/A/C/CA) alternate COVER ILLU…
January 20, 2017In “Comics”
