The Panic

by Neil Kleid, Andrea Mutti (Illustrator)

Overview

Ten strangers, trapped beneath the Hudson River, are forced to depend on their fellow commuters in order to survive an apocalyptic event...

Those left must fight their way through more than rubble to make it to safety. But the darkness is closing in, and with it their own individual fears and paranoia. It’ll be a long road to the end of the tunnel…that is, if they don’t kill each other before they get there.

Collects The Panic from the Comixology Originals digital series in print for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506728070
Publisher:	Dark Horse Comics
Publication date:	12/27/2022
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Neil Kleid is the Xeric-award winning graphic novelist who authored Ninety Candles, a graphic novella about life, death, legacy and comics, as well as Brownsville and The Big Kahn for NBM Publishing. He has written for nearly every publisher in the comic book industry, adapted Jack London’s Call of the Wild into sequentials for Penguin Books/Puffin Graphics, did the opposite for Marvel Comics’ seminal Spider-Man storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and co-authored (with Brian Michael Bendis) Powers: The Secret History of Deena Pilgrim for MacMillan Books, the first-ever original prose novel based on the award-winning comic book; Savor, his new adventure graphic novel (with John Broglia and Frank Reynoso) debuted in 2021 from Dark Horse Comics, and he is co-authoring Screaming for Vengeance, a sci-fi graphic novel based on the acclaimed album by heavy metal icons Judas Priest, alongside Rantz Hoseley, Chris Mitten and Dee Cunniffe for Z2 Comics. Neil is a trained product designer with twenty years of experience, having created experiences for clients such as Girl Scouts, Clarks Shoes and The Topps Company. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, kids, dog, grill.

Andrea Mutti is an acclaimed Italian artist who has worked for Marvel Comics/Entertainment, DC Comics, Vertigo, Dark Horse Comics, BOOM! Studios, Image, Dynamite Entertainment, and more!

Editorial Reviews

01/30/2023

Kleid (Savor) and Mutti (Parasomnia) inject topical commentary into an artistically striking if narratively uneven survival horror story. Beneath the New York City streets, a subway car crashes, forcing the survivors to band together and find a way to the surface. The group represents a cross-section of contemporary America, including a left-wing activist on her way to a protest, a right-wing man in a MAGA hat, a medical student conveniently on hand to stitch up injuries, and a homeless man who’s been living in the tunnels. Despite agreeing that the “predicament outweighs the politics,” they fight among themselves as viciously as external threats that range from panic-maddened cannibals to an army of rats. The narrative jumps around in time, doubling back to cover different characters’ viewpoints and to dig into their backstories, which proves disorienting. The efforts to make the 9/11-inspired plot feel relevant to present-day politics are sometimes distractingly on the nose, with characters pausing in the rubble to debate over BLM, antifa, and Covid-19. (Though the horror of a fellow subway rider taking off a mask after the train has literally crashed does strikingly evoke early pandemic times.) Mutti’s art, delicately lined and deeply shadowed, lends personality to the characters and a sense of claustrophobic terror to their ordeal. It all works best when it shrugs off headlines to focus on the disaster story and the characters’ human reactions. This worst-case scenario experiment will please thriller fans who can look past its preachy bits. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly