For Immediate Release

ComiXology Originals and Comicraft Announce Season Two Of The Hit Series

Elephantmen and Ask For Mercy

Elephantmen 2261 Season Two: The Pentalion Job#1 debuts today

Ask For Mercy: Ask For Budgie One-Shot debuts May 8th

with Ask For Mercy Season Two: The Center Of Everything That Is debuting this summer

Elephantmen 2261 Season One: The Death of Shorty is now available in print for the first time via Amazon.com Print-on-Demand

with Ask For Mercy Season One: The Key To Forever available in print May 8th

All comiXology Originals titles are available exclusively on Kindle and comiXology and are included in Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited and comiXology Unlimited

May 1, 2019 – New York, NY – ComiXology, Amazon’s premier digital comics service, and Comicraft announced today Season Two of the hit comiXology Originals series Elephantmen and Ask For Mercy, with Elephantmen 2261 Season Two: The Pentalion Job #1 out today, and Ask For Mercy Season Two: Ask For Budgie One-Shot debuting May 8th, and Ask For Mercy Season Two: The Center Of Everything That Is #1 debuting this summer. Elephantmen is written by Richard Starkings with art by Axel Medellin and covers by Boo Cook while Ask For Mercy is written by Richard Starkings with art by Abigail Jill Harding – both series were part of the creator-owned comiXology Originals launch last June. Elephantmen 2261 Season Two: The Pentalion Job #1 is digitally available to read now for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, with Ask For Mercy Season Two: Ask For Budgie One-Shot also available for members upon release, May 8th.

Today, Elephantmen 2261 Season Two: The Pentalion Job #1 kicks off the next adventure of the long running pulp science fiction series featuring the human/animal hybrid Elephantmen.Weapons of the war between Africa and China’s transgenics have surfaced and are being transported from the East Coast to the West Coast to be delivered to the Museum of Tolerance. In the vein of a Western heist, this new 4-issue miniseries follows ex-con Burba on a mission to steal three Pentalions (giant robotic exo-suits) before they reach their intended destination. The finale of this story will be the 100th issue of Elephantmen and with issue #1 artist Axel Medelin surpasses the 1,000 page mark!

And starting May 8th, the new season of Ask For Mercy kicks off with Ask for Mercy Season Two: Ask For Budgie One-Shot – spotlighting the breakout star of Season One, posing the questions: who is he and where did he come from? Following that, Ask For Mercy continues this summer with Ask For Mercy Season Two: The Center Of Everything That Is – a 5-issue miniseries in which Kasa takes Mercy, Ratmir and Budgie on an adventure where the course of history is at stake! Summoned by Lakota shaman, Medicine Bear, Mercy and her band of monsters discover that Ikto’mi, the Spider-trickster, is interfering with the lives of the people of the Black Hills and the American soldiers intent on driving the Indians out!



“Ask For Mercy wasn’t just Comicraft‘s first title for comiXology Originals, it was the first comic book series for my young collaborator, Abigail Jill Harding,” says writer Richard Starkings. “Her artwork went from strength to strength and, now that we’ve completed season one, we can’t wait for readers to see what we’re putting our band of monsters through in season two, set in North America in 1876! Demon Buffaloes! Spider-tricksters and the US Cavalry!”



“I’ve known Richard for years and am a huge fan of his work across the comics industry,” says Chip Mosher, comiXology’s Head of Content. “Richard’s excitement and passion since we launched comiXology Originals with both Elephantmen 2261 and Ask For Mercy was integral to the launch and success of comiXology Originals. It’s great to have Comicraft back for more!”

Additionally, Elephantmen 2261 Season One: The Death of Shorty – collecting the 5-issue whodunnit miniseries, where Hip Flask and Jack Farrell are drawn into the curious death of an Elephantman known to his friends as “Shorty”– is available today for the first time in print from Amazon.com print-on-demand, and digitally for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and for sale on comiXology and Kindle.

“Just a year ago, the idea of seeing Elephantmen 2261 Season One: The Death Of Shorty printed ‘on demand’ was both exciting and nerve-wracking!” says writer Richard Starkings. “Now that I have a copy in my hands, I’m just astounded by the Amazon Print on Demand’s quality and turnaround time! I’m very happy to be back with comiXology Originals for Season Two — alongside Ask For Mercy, Comicraft is building a whole library of titles for comiXology Originals!”



Ask For Mercy Season One: The Key To Forever – a World War II fantasy horror story in which Mercy is snatched from her own place and time to join a team of Monster Hunters who are actually Monsters themselves, and together they have to take on a Pantheon of Hideous Creatures summoned to our world by Nazi evil – will also be available print-on-demand via Amazon.com , for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and for sale on comiXology and Kindle , starting May 8th.

ComiXology Originals offer new, exclusive comic book content across Amazon’s subscription services of Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited. Prime Reading offers Amazon Prime members a rotating selection of over a thousand top Kindle books, magazines, short works, comic books, children’s books, and more – all at no additional cost. Kindle Unlimited offers over 1 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and select current issues of popular magazines for just $9.99 a month with a 30-day free trial for new members at amazon.com/kindleunlimited. ComiXology Unlimited offers over 20,000 comics, graphic novels and manga for just $5.99 a month with a 30-day free trial for new members at comixology.com/unlimited.

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About the Elephantmen Creative Team

Richard Starkings is the creator/writer of ELEPHANTMEN; co-creator, with Abigail Jill Harding, of ASK FOR MERCY! and co-creator, with Tyler Shainline and Shaky Kane, of THE BEEF. In the course of a distinguished career in comic books, Richard edited a line of original titles for Marvel UK in the 80s, founded the COMICRAFT design and lettering studio in the 90s and established the foremost source for comic book lettering fonts at comicbookfonts.com. He has worked as a lettering artist on just about every mainstream comic book you might care to mention, including BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, and has written comic strips for THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, ZOIDS, TRANSFORMERS and DOCTOR WHO. With Comicraft’s Secret Weapon, John Roshell, Richard created the indispensable guide, COMIC BOOK LETTERING THE COMICRAFT WAY as well as the Artist Retrospectives TIM SALE: BLACK AND WHITE and J SCOTT CAMPBELL: TIME CAPSULE. Richard loves Yorkshire Tea, Cadbury’s Flake and Lori Perkins, but not necessarily in that order.

Axel Medellin has been creating art for the ELEPHANTMEN series since 2010 and is probably meeting a deadline right now. Nevertheless, he has somehow managed to fit in drawing and coloring other comics for HEAVY METAL, Zenescope, Boom! Studios and Image Comics’ FIFTY GIRLS FIFTY with Frank Cho.



Boo Cook studied illustration at Art college in Cambridge where he felt he was learning a lot as his artistic imagination was beaten out of him — which caused him to retreat to play drums for five years while he spray-painted the unspeakable parts of ceramic beagles at a factory in Scotland. In the year 2000AD he approached the British comics weekly 2000AD with his portfolio and was soon drawing notable characters such as Judge Dredd, Judge Anderson, ABC Warriors, Harry Kipling, Asylum and, most recently, BLUNT for the Judge Dredd Megazine. Boo has also illustrated strips for Titans Doctor Who line and covers for various Marvel books including WOLVERINE. Boo is a talented musician and frequently performs with his bands, Forktail and Motherbox.

About the Ask For Mercy Creative Team

Richard Starkings is the creator/writer of ELEPHANTMEN; co-creator, with Abigail Jill Harding, of ASK FOR MERCY! and co-creator, with Tyler Shainline and Shaky Kane, of THE BEEF. In the course of a distinguished career in comic books, Richard edited a line of original titles for Marvel UK in the 80s, founded the COMICRAFT design and lettering studio in the 90s and established the foremost source for comic book lettering fonts at comicbookfonts.com. He has worked as a lettering artist on just about every mainstream comic book you might care to mention, including BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, and has written comic strips for THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, ZOIDS, TRANSFORMERS and DOCTOR WHO. With Comicraft’s Secret Weapon, John Roshell, Richard created the indispensable guide, COMIC BOOK LETTERING THE COMICRAFT WAY as well as the Artist Retrospectives TIM SALE: BLACK AND WHITE and J SCOTT CAMPBELL: TIME CAPSULE. Richard loves Yorkshire Tea, Cadbury’s Flake and Lori Perkins, but not necessarily in that order.

Abigail Jill Harding is a young English illustrator and comic book artist from Yorkshire, whose first professional comics work appeared in ELEPHANTMEN #72, written by Richard Starkings whom she met at a signing at Travelling Man in York. Abigail graduated from York College with a BA honours in 3D Art and Design in 2015 but continued to concentrate on her illustration work and did small comic projects. Abigail had been showcasing her mixed-media skills at the yearly Leeds Comics Arts Festival, Thought Bubble and it was the short strip she contributed to the festival’s 2015 print anthology that caught Richard’s eye. Since then she has done cover work for Titan Comics. Abigail is currently illustrating ASK FOR MERCY, a comiXology Originals title which she dreamed up with Richard Starkings while they were visiting The Royal Armouries in Leeds.

About comiXology

ComiXology, an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is a revolutionary, cloud-based digital comics service. With content from over 125 publishers as well as thousands of independent creators from around the world, comiXology provides an unrivaled library of comic books, graphic novels, manga and bandes dessinées. The company’s first-in-class innovations include the exclusive Guided View technology which provides an immersive and cinematic reading experience and a new monthly subscription service. ComiXology is based in New York City, with operations in Seattle and Los Angeles. For more information, visit comixology.com and follow the company on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

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