Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Oni Press | Tagged: Christopher Cantwell, Tyler Crook

Christopher Cantwell & Tyler Crook's Out Of Alcatraz- Oni's New Comics

Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook's Out Of Alcatraz Joins Five New Oni Comics For 2025

Oni Press has been leading into the New Year with teases and announcements for five new creator-owned series after the 27-year-old publisher returned to the Direct Market Top 10 for the first time in nearly five years with series like EC Comics' Epitaphs From The Abyss and Cruel Universe, and the Devolver Digital video game adaptation Cult of the Lamb. Oni's 2025 rollout began a few weeks ago with the revelation that Patrick Horvath would be debuting a 56-page one-shot, Free For All, at Oni in March and was followed in short order by teases of four other projects yet to come, including:

• Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave #1 by Justin Jordan & Chris Shehan in February
• Free for All #1 by Patrick Horvath in March
• Plague House #1 by Michael W. Conrad & Dave Chisholm in April
• The Goddamn Tragedy #1 by Chris Condon & Shawn Kuruneru in May

Breaking today, we know the identity of the fifth and final series: Out Of Alcatraz #1 – the "double-sized, 48-page" first issue of "a taut, five-issue American odyssey" from Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook. Featuring fully painted interiors and covers by Crook alongside covers by Oliver Dominguez, Valeria Burzo, Massimo Carnevale, and Hayden Sherman, the series follows "history's most notorious fugitives as they desperately race for freedom through the California countryside … leaving a trail of wreckage, bodies, and painful revelations in their wake." The full series synopsis from Oni's PR:

"Convicts Frank Morris and Clarence Anglin have washed ashore in San Francisco after surviving their infamous escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in June 1962. They soon meet their gruff and disappointed handler, a mysterious young woman who's also running from something, and hope to quickly get their way north to the border – if they can even make it out of Modesto alive. As a dogged federal manhunt and chance encounters threaten the desperate convicts, everyone involved is about to discover the same bloodstained truth: life on the run is an even more hellish prison than Alcatraz could have ever been."

Said writer Christopher Cantwell of his first collaboration with artist Tyler Crook: "The possible escape from Alcatraz by three men in 1962 is one of those mythic loose threads in history, one that captured my imagination a long time ago. Out of Alcatraz is my obsessive ruminations about what might have become of them if they really did make it off that island and out of the bay, and has turned into this American parable about what it means to be free and if any of us ever really can be. Watching Tyler render this tense, violent, and human story so beautifully with his visionary eye and hand has been one of the high points of my career as a writer." You can check an advance look ahead at Crook's interior painted artwork from Out of Alcatraz #1 below:

Additionally, check out the complete breakdown of Oni's "upcoming slate of five, genre-defying series" here:

February: MINE IS A LONG, LONESOME GRAVE #1 (of 4)
Written by JUSTIN JORDAN | Art by CHRIS SHEHAN Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated writer Justin Jordan (The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Dead Body Road) and #1 best-selling artist Chris Shehan (House of Slaughter) throw a brass-knuckled gut punch of revenge-horror torn from the forgotten corners of Appalachia, where magic and murder go hand in hand. . .Harley Creed is a bad man. He used to be worse. A violent ex-con with a string of brutal crimes in his past, he only wanted one thing when he finally walked free from prison: to leave Briar Falls, WV, behind and disappear forever. But Harley's hometown has a strange way of swallowing people whole—call it a consequence of the low-level folk magic that has permeated its darker corners for generations. And now that Harley has returned, pent-up vengeance for his past crimes is about to come roaring back. Somebody has put a hex on him—and Harley has seven days before he dies in twisted, screaming agony. To reverse it, Harley must find and kill his unseen enemy before their curse can reap its terrible end. But in Briar Falls, there's no shortage of suspects—and Harley is coming for them all. If can't have peace, at least he can have revenge.

March: FREE FOR ALL #1
Written by PATRICK HORVATH | Art by PATRICK HORVATH From Eisner Award-nominated writer/artist Patrick Horvath (Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees) comes a 56-page, self-contained one-shot that delivers a brutal new vision of capitalism by combat . . .In the future, the World Finance League exists to benefit all, randomly choosing those from among the billionaires and trillionaires of the world and presenting them with a choice: either donate half of their assets to the common good—or defend them in ritual combat. Reigning champion and real estate magnate Ted Brooks has 22 victories under his belt—defending the wealth he schemed and stabbed to get—when he is forced to face his ex-wife, Luella Dominguez, in a fight to the death. Luella has been training, waiting for this moment. But will she have what it takes to defeat the man who would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep his fortune? It's every shareholder for themselves when death and bankruptcy collide in Free for All #1, a giant-sized, one-shot spectacle of commerce and carnage coming this March from Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist Patrick Horvath!

April: PLAGUE HOUSE #1 (of 4)
Written by MICHAEL W. CONRAD | Art by DAVE CHISHOLM. Oni Press invites you to PLAGUE HOUSE #1 – the FIRST ISSUE of a tense and turbulent four-issue ghost story from acclaimed writer Michael W. Conrad (Wonder Woman, Double Walker) and 2024 Ringo Award-winning artist Dave Chisholm (Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound) coming to comic shops everywhere in April 2025.In PLAGUE HOUSE, a trio of eclectic ghost hunters – Jacob, the holy man, Holland, the skeptic, and leader Del, the believer – explore haunted locales, hoping to prove the existence of the undead and exorcize malicious spirits. At the McCabe House, the scene of a grisly quadruple homicide, the group senses the deep pain left in the wake of the crime. As Orin McCabe sits in prison, Del learns from his family's ghosts what it will require to cleanse the home of their restless spirits…COMING APRIL 2025 | LIMITED SERIES

May: THE GODDAMN TRAGEDY #1
Written by CHRIS CONDON | Art by SHAWN KURUNERUOni Press is proud to unveil THE GODDAMN TRAGEDY #1 – a vicious and vengeful account of one of the Old West's darkest episodes from those that lived to tell it from breakout writer Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine, That Texas Blood) and artist Shawn Kuruneru (Fishflies). A tense and entirely self-contained 48-page, one-shot graphic novella coming to comic shops everywhere in May 2025, THE GODDAMN TRAGEDY #1 returns the writer of THAT TEXAS BLOOD to his Western roots as realized through the lavishly destructive painted artwork of fast-rising star Shawn Kuruneru.Ellen Janson is here to set the record straight about the highly publicized, oft-sensationalized journey her family undertook in 1846. Ellen sets out with her mother, Irena, and her father, Leo, on the treacherous road west in search of a better life. But when her father chooses to split off from the party, taking an untested shortcut through the mountains, can their small family survive the elements, the wildlife—and each other? Or will their journey become nothing more than another goddamn tragedy?

Out of Alcatraz #1 by Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook will debut in March from Oni Press.

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