"Dark Regards: A Comic's Outrageous Origin Story"

Dark Regards emerges as one of the most captivating indie comics in recent memory, boasting a backstory as wild and thrilling as the comic itself. Dive into our exclusive preview of Dark Regards #1 and decide for yourself.

Explore the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive glimpse into the new series, but be warned: some content may include NSFW language!

Oni Press' Dark Regards #1: Preview Gallery

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Dark Regards is the creative brainchild of comedian, writer, and musician Dave Hill, alongside artist Artyom Topilin, known for his work on Cruel Universe and I Hate This Place. This four-issue series draws inspiration from Hill's own adventures in forming a fictional Satanic metal band named Witch Taint, which led to an unexpected whirlwind of chaos.

Here's how Oni Press officially describes the series:

Two decades ago, Dave Hill and his first band set out to rock their high school auditorium with a fury of heavy metal hellfire. They failed miserably. Years later, Dave has carved out a new life for himself as a rising star in the New York comedy scene—a career where getting laughed at on stage is the entire point, not just a tragic consequence. But when Dave's metal ambitions are reignited by the über self-serious, “Satanic” genre of Norwegian black metal, he creates a ridiculously hyperbolic alter ego and a band to match, reigniting the spark of his forgotten rock 'n roll fantasy. But when Dave's internet-fueled rumors of Witch Taint—a metal band “so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area” when their music is played—spread all the way to Europe, his story spirals dangerously out of control. Norway's most extreme black metal butchers come to reap their revenge, putting everything and everyone Dave holds dear in the crosshairs (of their axes, which, truth be told, don't actually have crosshairs, but, hey, it's a metaphor).

“A few years back, I sat down in my underwear late one night and decided to let my obsession with Norwegian black metal run wild by emailing a Norwegian black metal record label, telling them all the bands on their label sucked despite the fact that I had never listened to any of them, and suggesting they sign my extremely extreme black metal band Witch Taint, which had yet to record any music and didn't even exist beyond the band name I'd just made up on the spot,” Hill shared in a statement. “This first email led to months of correspondence with the record label that I never intended for anyone to see. But the Internet being the Internet, eventually a lot of people saw it and things got nuts. Now, beyond my wildest dreams, this story has become my first comic book series Dark Regards, written by me and illustrated by the amazing Artyom Topilin. If you don't devour every single issue, you are basically insane.”

Dark Regards #1 is priced at $4.99 and will hit the shelves on May 13, 2025.

For more exclusive comic book previews, take a look at the final issue of TMNT: The Last Ronin II and the Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell, inspired by The Dark Knight Returns.