Vault Comics has officially released Atanacia, a cold, genre-curved graphic novel from bestselling horror writer Daniel Klaus (Water Shape, Whale Fall) and visionary artist Dani (Arkham City, Coffin Bound). Going into page 256 and arriving this October, Athanasia has been poised for years to become one of the most memorable takes on superhero mythology.
Set in Venture City, the story follows Forest Molson, who tries to remain calm while working as an assistant ground keeper at Atanasia Cemetery, the city’s final resting place for fallen superheroes. However, it reignites in a terrifying new way when she reveals her horrifying secret: her battle with addiction, a substance that oozes out of the corpses of buried heroes. To use Oz to gain unpredictable power, Forest spirals into the vigilante crusades, blurring the line between justice and the monster.
For Klaus, Athanasia was six years in making, born out of a failed superhero pitch and into a major publisher that evolved into something much darker and more personal. “My brain has become a ‘superhero cemetery’,” he recalled. “What happens to the soil if I bury a superhero? Very quickly, the answer guided me the storyline path to addiction and the length of time I went to forgive my actions.”
Though deeply rooted in the superhero genre, Klaus makes it clear that this is not a story of cape and glory. “I wasn’t interested in heroism on the major scale. All I was interested in was small and personal acts of heroism,” he said. “The bigger sense of heroism that applies to superheroes has always been simple and I’ve felt overly optimistic for me.”
For artist Dani, the project unanticipatedly hit personal chords during difficult times in her life:
“When Daniel Klaus approached me and introduced me to the world of Atanasia, I was in a strange place in life. I was caring for my grandmother and in the last few months of her life, my parents were trapped abroad due to illness during COVID.
This book is about family issues, fighting addiction and struggling for inner balance. Also, Daniel and I share the same approach to the superhero genre and its dark layers, so this was a project I wanted to be involved in immediately.
The relationships Daniel created in this book are very sensitive and fragile. As an artist, it was important to showcase this through my linework, so I made the creative choice to update a heavy ink block in normal style and replace it with a textured pen scratches. This doubled the workload considering the length of the book, but it was well worth it. Combining that with Brad Simpson’s excellent colour choices has made us always a proud visual.
Athanasia lived with me for almost two years during its creation and changed me as a person, but my collaboration with Daniel and Brad helped me evolve as an artist. Hopefully it will awaken some of your readers and calm them down. ”
This October Atanascha is available anywhere in comic shops and bookstores. Scroll down to see the textless preview first.
