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The Creeping Below #[nn]
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Creeping Below #1 marks the debut of Val, a wholly original protagonist whose death-and-resurrection arc fuses Norse mythology, eco-horror, and the aesthetic of the black metal underground into a feminist revenge narrative — a combination with essentially no direct precedent in mainstream American comics. The series arrives at BOOM! Studios during a sustained creative push for Mature Readers original IP, placing it alongside titles that have helped redefine what genre horror can accomplish at a non-Big-Two publisher. By rooting its supernatural transformation in the real geography of Oslo and the actual subculture of the Norwegian metal scene, the book attempts a grounded cultural specificity unusual for the resurrection-revenge subgenre. Its sell-out at the distributor level before a second printing was even solicited confirmed that the market responded to the creative team's pedigree and the series' distinct genre cocktail.
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The series was announced as part of BOOM! Studios' Road to San Diego Comic-Con 2024 programming, positioning it as a prestige original alongside the publisher's existing horror line. Writer Brian Azzarello — co-creator of 100 Bullets with Eduardo Risso and architect of DC's Black Label launch via Batman: Damned — brought his long-running interest in crime and moral ambiguity to a supernatural horror framework, while Cuban-born artist Vanesa R. Del Rey, whose previous BOOM! work included The Empty Man and whose creator-owned Redlands (with Jordie Bellaire at Image) earned an Eisner nomination for Best New Series in 2018, supplied the visual identity. Colorist Hilary Jenkins, known for BOOM!'s Black Badge and Grass Kings, and letterer AndWorld Design (Something Is Killing the Children) rounded out the full creative team. The title was published under the BOOM! Studios eponymous imprint at a moment when the publisher had just been acquired entirely by Penguin Random House, lending the line additional distribution infrastructure.
Trivia · 8 facts
- The Creeping Below #1 shipped October 2, 2024, as a five-issue limited series published by BOOM! Studios under its main imprint.
- Writer: Brian Azzarello (Harvey and Eisner Award winner, co-creator of 100 Bullets); Artist: Vanesa R. Del Rey; Colorist: Hilary Jenkins; Letterer: AndWorld Design.
- The series introduces Val, an American heavy-metal fan attending Oslo's Inferno Metal Festival who is drugged, beaten, and left for dead by a local black metal band — then resurrected and empowered by the Old Gods of Norse mythology to pursue vengeance.
- Issue #1 sold out at the distributor level prior to its on-sale date; a second printing — featuring a black-and-white variant cover by Del Rey — was announced November 8, 2024, and scheduled for November 27, 2024.
- The series blends three distinct genre modes: black metal subculture, eco-horror (moss and roots physically erupting from Val's transformed body), and Norse mythological revenge saga.
- BOOM! Studios and the press described the series' tonal DNA as 'Swamp Thing meets The Crow,' invoking two of the medium's landmark transformation-and-vengeance narratives.
- The complete five-issue run (issues #1–5) was solicited for collection in a trade paperback edition in the BOOM! Studios January 2026 catalog.
- Issue #1 launched with multiple cover variants, including art by Maria Llovet, Mike Deodato Jr., and Jae Lee (with June Chung), in addition to the main cover by Del Rey.
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