Writer Garth Ennis and a group of comics and entertainment veterans have founded a new, horror-focused comics publisher, Ninth Circle (named after the depths of hell in Dante’s Inferno).  The co-founders will have an equity stake in the company and the works will be group-owned.  Ninth Circle will publish via Image Comics.

In addition to Ennis, the co-founders are writers Marguerite Bennett and Ram V; writer and editor Joe Pruett, the founder of Desperado Publishing and former Publisher and CCO of AfterShock Comics; screenwriter, producer, and graphic novelist Adam Glass; Michael Bogner, SVP of Legal Affairs at ABGO, who will be the strategic advisor for the new publisher; and David Stone of TFC Management, who will be the company representative.  The lead investor is producer Kimberly Steward, whose production company K Period Media will adapt some titles for other platforms.  Steward is the producer of Manchester by the Sea and is the sister of David Steward II, founder of Polarity, the parent company of Oni Press (see “Lion Forge, Oni Press to Merge”).

The new publisher will have a strong focus on the horror genre, with plans to release one double-shot, stand-alone comic containing a complete horror story every month.  The launch title will be Freddie the Fix, by Ennis and artist Mike Perkins, the story of a Hollywood fixer who cleans up the messes left behind by Tinseltown’s vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural denizens.  The one-shot comic will be released on December 11, 2024, and will be perfect bound, magazine size (8.5” x 10.875”), with a card stock cover.  Perkins is the cover artist, and there will also be a 1:10 incentive cover by Marcelo Frusin.

Click Gallery below for covers and preview (Warning: Gore!).