Comedian Brian Posehn, who had an unpleasant experience with the Firefly clan in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects, is teaming up with Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman and Heavy Metal Magazine to bring us the horror comedy comic The Axe. The Axe will begin appearing as a serial in issues of Heavy Metal in early 2022, and will later be collected into a comic book series and a trade paperback. Along with the announcement of the comic, it has also been revealed that a movie adaptation is already in development!
Described as being like “Army of Darkness meets The Goonies“, The Axe will follow
three nerdy, skatepunk, metalhead teenagers who steal an old, cursed guitar that opens a portal to an interdimensional hell-scape called Sheol. In Sheol, the kids must fight off hideous ancient creatures while trying to get back to Earth.
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Scott Koblish is on board as illustrator, with Diego Fichera providing the color.
Posehn had this to say about the project:
We put horror and heavy metal music in a blender with likable kids as our protagonists and came up with the perfect combo for a collaboration with Heavy Metal Magazine.”
Trohman added:
The Axe merges two of my favorite things — horror and comedy — but it has heart. We intentionally wove in themes of broken childhood, abandonment and coming-of-age throughout the book, and I am proud of the dimensions within this story. But on the fun side, what we were able to do with pushing the gore, the jokes, the darkness, it’s just everything I’ve really wanted to do on a wish-fulfillment level. I am really, truly grateful that Heavy Metal wanted to take a swing on this one. I am thrilled to see it come to life on the page.”
Heavy Metal CEO Matthew Medney provided the following statement:
It’s always special when the human lives up to the iconic rock n’ roll persona, and it’s only generational when that person exceeds it. That is Joe Trohman in a nutshell. When he brought The Axe to me, I instantly fell in love. It’s Heavy Metal’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and then some. By bringing Brian Posehn, Scott Koblish, and Diego Fichera into the mix, it brought together an A-triple-plus team to realize this insane concept. And with one of our top editors, Morgan Rosenblum, at the helm, this book is going to ooze Heavy Metal.”
Variety notes that
the origins of The Axe story were first captured in the episode of the Heavy Metal audio drama podcast, WonderWerk, titled Axe Origins, which was written and directed by Trohman and featured Posehn as the main narrator, with episode music created by Trohman and Matthew Medney.
The Axe sounds like a good time to me. Preview pages of the comic (minus dialogue) can be seen below:
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