#SDCC16: Dark Horse Ready to Explore the Ether; Neil Gaiman Returning to Forbidden Brides

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Dark Horse has joined the fray of San Diego Comic-Con announcements with two recent reveals that are sure to get the hearts of horror comic fans beating just a bit faster.  We have the early word on both new 5-issue series Ether and beloved writer Neil Gaiman’s return to his “Forbidden Brides” short story, which is becoming a graphic novel.

Dark Horse Announces New Series Ether from Matt Kindt and David Rubín
Dark Horse is proud to announce a new series from the talented creative team of Matt Kindt (MIND MGMT, Past Aways, Super Spy, Dept. H) and David Rubín (The Hero, The Rise of Aurora West). Ether is a fantastical story about what happens when science and magic intersect.

Ether follows the adventures of Boone Dias, a science-minded interdimensional explorer from Earth, as he tries to reconcile the existence of magic with his own scientific reality. Boone is a regular visitor to the Ether, a supernatural realm with magical residents. The Ether’s residents trust Boone to solve their toughest crimes by combining his background in science with the Ether’s magic.

C-ocreator Matt Kindt explained the parallels between Boone’s science-mindedness and his own: “Ether came from my love-hate relationship with the supernatural. It’s not a genre I’m particularly attracted to as a creator, and I really wanted to figure out why. So in a lot of ways, the main character in Ether is a surrogate for the part of me that wants to explore the supernatural but also wants everything to be explained — which can literally ruin the magic of a supernatural story.”

The first issue of Ether goes on sale November 16, 2016, with four subsequent issues published monthly.

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Writer Neil Gaiman Returns to “Forbidden Brides”
Dark Horse is excited to announce Neil Gaiman (Sandman) is returning to one of his darkly complicated short stories in Neil Gaiman’s Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire. Originally published as a short story in Gaiman’s collection Fragile Things, Forbidden Brides has been adapted by Shane Oakley into a stunning hardcover graphic novel. 

This haunting example of satirical Gothic literature tells the story of a writer struggling to compose nonfiction on a dark, stormy night. Wishing to create serious stories about frail women in white nightgowns, mysterious bumps in the night, and the undead rising to collect old debts, the author is unsuccessful because of his tendency to insert comedy into his dark tales. Talking ravens, family disagreements, and interruptions from his creepy butler further hinder his literary efforts.

Writer Neil Gaiman explained the overarching theme of Forbidden Brides and the aspects of this story that influenced Sandman: “It’s about what fantasy is, and why we write it, and what it would mean to write fantasy if you lived in a Gothic universe. Some of it prefigured things I’d do in Sandman four years later.”

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire goes on sale January 25, 2017. The hardcover graphic novel is available for pre-order from Penguin Random House and Amazon.

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