Philly Playwright Publishing New Gay Comic Book Series, “Dash”

Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee!

Philly-area director/playwright Dave Ebersole—who I profiled a few years back in the Philadelphia City Paper—is taking his talents from stage to comic book store in his newest project, a comic series called “Dash.”

“Dash,” Ebersole tells me, is a noir detective serial set in Los Angeles in 1940. He describes it as The Maltese Falcon meets The Mummy—but in this story the main character is openly gay private eye Dash Malone. Here’s a description from the first issue, The Case of the Mysterious Zita Makara:

Private investigator Dash Malone can’t shake the feeling his lover, Johnny, is hiding something. Strange deaths start occurring throughout the city while a mysterious woman named Zita Makara begs Dash to take her case. When a grisly murder connects all three, a terrifying mystery unfolds.

Ebersole had help putting together “Dash” from illustrator Delia Gable, a grad of the University of Pennsylvania. And the first trailer, which you can see below, features music by Philly music man Christopher Tolomeo.

“Dash” is being published through Northwest Press, a publishing company focusing on LGBTQ works in comics. You can expect to see it on shelves on September 24th. From then on, Ebersole says, it will come out monthly.

On October 4th Ebersole will host a launch party at the Society Hill Playhouse, where there will be free comics, blues music, and a “live, old-fashioned radio play reading of The Case of the Mysterious Zita Makara. Stay tuned for more details about that.