A celebrated traveler, chef and self-proclaimed enthusiast.
A praised journalist and author.
A genre-defying and ground-breaking editor.
A host of luminously talented and beloved illustrators.
The launch of a new book publishing imprint.
Food, candles, samurai… and classic ghost stories.
That’s what’s on the menu today at local comic book shops everywhere today. It’s an event whose literary courses are sure to fill any reader’s appetite – from wonderful art to historical learning to spooky stories that keep you up at night.
Hungry Ghosts, co-written by Parts Unknown celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and novelist Joel Rose (The Blackest Bird, Kill Kill Faster Faster) is the first release from new publisher, Berger Books.
And it’s much anticipated. This is the book to dine on, with the (candle) light turned low!
Hungry Ghosts #1
Written By: Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose
Illustrated By: Alberto Ponticelli, Vanessa Del Rey and Jose Villarrubia
Published By: Berger Books/Dark Horse Comics
No strangers to the comic book medium, Hungry Ghosts, a four-issue miniseries, is not the first time Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose have worked together. They previously co-authored Get Jiro! for DC Comics’ mature and sophisticated imprint, Vertigo Comics, a few years ago, as well as that book’s sequel/prequel, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi.
But it was their team-up with legendary editor Karen Berger, who founded Vertigo Comics in the late 1980s, that brought Hungry Ghosts to publishing fruition. Berger, it must be said, redefined what a comic book could be, decades ago, pushing the envelope of the medium – as well as its creators – so that the world could read books like Swamp Thing, The Sandman and John Constantine: Hellblazer, among so many others. She offered a platform for the voices of important writers in the genre like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello and Brian K. Vaughan.
The talents, both writers and artists, that Berger has worked with over her career is a veritable who’s who hall-of-comic-book-fame.
Berger Books is her brand new publishing imprint at Dark Horse Comics. And Bourdain’s and Rose’s Hungry Ghosts is its first offering to the public menu.
Hungry Ghosts tells multiple stories of horror, mystery and… food, inspired by the lives of the samurai of the Japanese Edo period and their dinner-time ghost story “game” of Hyakumonogatori Kaidankai.
In the comic book series, international chefs are dared to play that game of “100 Candles,” where each storyteller spins a yarn of ghosts, demons and their cooking!
Joined by illustrators Alberto Ponticelli, Vanessa Del Rey and Jose Villarrubia (inside a great cover by Paul Pope!), the first issue showcases a ramen chef who refuses to help a beggar with harrowing consequences, as well as a band of pirates who get just desserts (see what I did there?!) after an encounter with a drowning woman.
Each issue of the four-issue Hungry Ghosts will feature different all-star artists, with each new tale falling under the umbrella of the ancient samurai’s terrifying short-story game.
Make the run to your local comic book shop today and pick up the tasty dread of Hungry Ghosts #1!
You can catch a sneak peek of Hungry Ghosts #1 right here!
Reblogged this on JP Fallavollita.