via The Beat:
AfterShock Comics has announced The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde, a new adventure road trip series set to debut in November. The series comes from writer John Lees, artist Joe Mulvey, colorist Doug Garbark, and letterer Shawn Lee. The debut issue will arrive with a main cover by Mulvey and a variant cover by Alex Cormack.
Here’s how AfterShock describes The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde:
When Ben Pillar and Eli Pryde were kids, they did something incredible. They saved a young girl’s life and stopped a madman. They were heroes. But that was a long time ago. Now, with their career as young adult adventure novelists in decline, and their friendship in similar dire straits, the pair embark on a road trip back to their old hometown in hopes of mending their relationship. But a new evil has emerged in the town of Tarragon Falls. Can Pillar and Pryde be heroes again?
The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde is the first AfterShock Comics work for writer John Lees, whose other comics credits include the forthcoming The Nasty with artist George Kambadais from Vault Comics, and The Crimson Cage with Alex Cormack from AWA Studios, among many others. It’s also Lees’ first collaboration with artist Joe Mulvey, though Mulvey has provided cover art for several of Lees’ previous comics like the IDW series Mountainhead and the ComixTribe-published Sink. Pillar & Pryde is also Mulvey’s first AfterShock Comics work; his previous interior credits include Scam, which Mulvey also wrote, and Wailing Blade with writer Rich Douek, both published by ComixTribe.
In a statement announcing the series, writer Lees described some of his inspirations in developing the story:
“Back in the height of the pandemic in 2020, I got heavily into reading Naoki Urasawa manga, and 20th Century Boys became perhaps my all-time favorite comic. And while this is ultimately a very different story, I can see a lot of thematic resonance, in terms of juxtaposing adult protagonists with their young selves and jumping back and forth between them to examine what has been lost with time and what has stayed constant. There are some Stephen King influences in there, for sure, though saying what specific stories might give too much away! In developing the pitch, I was drawing from two divergent sources: old-school, doom-laden ‘70s horror like Messiah of Evil, but then also friendship-themed comedy stuff like Hot Fuzz, Paddleton or Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. And in the process of making the comic, I can definitely see that it’s adopted much of the “cozy murder” aesthetic seen in recent stuff like Knives Out, The Kid Detective and Only Murders in the Building.”
Check out an interior preview of the first issue below. The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde is due out in stores and digitally on Wednesday, November 9th.
