Have you been craving a Queer, Black twist to your horror novels?

Well even if you haven’t you’ll be sucked into this new take on an old art with collaborative new graphic horror novel The Gentleman #1: Darkness of the Void.

Written by Greg Anderson Elysée in partnership with editor and creator Marcel Dupree, this latest creation is breaking boundaries left and right as it not only features a BLACK male lead… but a BISEXUAL BLACK male lead at that. The story follows Oliver Solomon, a private investigator who’s ‘haunted by a hereditary curse in which his heart serves as a lock and vessel to an ancient evil called the Void, who is bent on the destruction of life and conflicting chaos’, and as he stands outsider to his peers- “a femme fatale comes into his life and gets him tangled into a strange and dangerous case”, Elysée explains.

Not only is Elysée rewriting the script of graphic novel-ism, but he’s also providing a platform where there once was none. He tells AFROPUNK: “What I wanted to do with this book is not only challenge myself as a writer but also challenge what we are accustomed to when it comes to horror stories.” And he did just that, going on to say: “I decided to make the lead a bisexual man because not only does it break the tradition of what we’ve come to expect when it comes to a hero, a Black bi male comfortable in his own skin is something we as an audience isn’t accustomed to seeing, and in many places it’s still not welcomed.” What better genre to change a narrative with than horror- after all, there are no rules in the laws of fear and suspense!

You can support this novel and others like it on their Kickstarter, and make sure to look out for the release of Elysée and Dupree’s The Gentleman #1: Darkness of the Void! Check out some stills of the artwork below.

CREDITS FOR THE BOOK:

The Gentleman: Darkness of the Void #1

Writer: Greg Anderson Elysée

Art: Massimiliano Veltri

Colors: Marco Pagnotta

Letters: Nick Allen

Editor and Creator: Marcel Dupree