Posted in: Comics, Oni Press | Tagged: Christopher Condon, comicspro, jordan thomas, Melissa Flores, oni press, phil hester, Xino

ComicsPRO: Oni: Christopher Condon, Phil Hester, Melissa Flores' Xino

Christopher Condon, Phil Hester, Melissa Flores, Jordan Thomas, Shaky Kane and more add to Xino, a new sci-fi anthology series from Oni Press

Published Thu, 23 Feb 2023 10:16:13 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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Right now, as ComicsPRO 2023 is beginning in Pittsburgh, PA, Oni is continuing to roll out its promised slate of news and announcements. Sierra Hahn had signed on as the publisher's new Editor-in-Chief. Yesterday, they announced that former Third Eye Comics retailer Michael Torma was also coming aboard as to lead the company's sales strategy, while promoting editor Desiree Rodriguez to head up the company's social media and digital content strategy. Now, as revealed via pre-arranged PR at Popverse, they're onto new content with a "subversive, psych-surrealist science fiction" anthology series called Xino – and the first issue is set to feature a pretty heady line-up of "celebrated creators from Oni's recent past and imminent future" that are notably new to Oni Press, and very familiar to Image Comics, such as:

Christopher Condon, writer of Image's much-acclaimed That Texas Blood, with art by Nick Cagnetti, who recently concluded Oni breakout series Pink Lemonade
Melissa Flores, who's taken the reins on Boom's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise while also shepherding the Radiantverse title The Dead Lucky at Image, alongside artist Daniel Irizarri of Judge Dredd fame
Comics great Phil Hester, who is concluding his art duties on Tom King's Gotham City: Year One (and also returned to Image last year for Family Tree with Jeff Lemire)
And newcomer Jordan Thomas, who is working alongside Image stalwart Shaky Kane (Bulletproof Coffin, The Beef)

Here's how Oni describes the series:

Oni Press is proud to announce an all-new limited-series event, only perceptible in three dimensions as XINO #1 – the first of three, 40-page intra-ocular lozenges of subversive, psych-surrealist science fiction to cure your awful awareness of our meager reality.

Try not to worry — the implantation process will be guided by the megawatt brilliance of Oni's brightest talents—past, present, and future—as they slowly tune your hopes, dreams, desires, paranoia, alienation, anxiety, and adrenaline to produce the desired results.

In our first exploratory outing: Rising stars Melissa Flores (The Dead Lucky, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) & Daniel Irizarri (Judge Dredd) surgically activate the hidden dimensions of the human senses; cult phenoms Christopher Condon (That Texas Blood) and Nick Cagnetti (Pink Lemonade) debut the world's first intravenous video game system; underground radicals Jordan Thomas (Weird Work) and Shaky Kane (Bulletproof Coffin) surveil the suburbs for signs of covert infiltration; master cartoonist and foundational Oni creator Phil Hester (Gotham City: Year One, The Coffin) returns to the fold to leave his deepest mark yet

"Oni's commitment to creator-owned comics runs deep, and, with XINO, we're paying tribute to some of the company's earliest and most beloved releases, like the seminal ONI DOUBLE FEATURE, while teeing up some big pieces for the future," says series editor Zack Soto. "This is big-swing, big-idea science fiction with an edge—the exact kind of thing that made me fall in love with the comics medium in the first place."

Clocking in at 40 pages per issue with "rotating cast of new creators" for the remainder of the three-issue series, XINO #1 (of 3) arrives on the 14th of June and features first issue covers by Matt Lesniewski (Crimson Flower), André Lima Araújo (A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance), Matt Sheean & Malachi Ward (Black Hammer Reborn), and Shaky Kane (Deadline, 2000 AD):