The Good Asian and Infidel creator Pornsak Pichetshote has announced his latest endeavor: The Horizon Experiment. This “publishing and incubation program” will debut five one-shot comics from five all-star creator lineups.
The hook? Each story pairs a protagonist from a marginalized background with a popular genre. Furthermore, for each story, the characters’ respective backgrounds are inextricable from the story being told. Read on to learn everything we know about The Horizon Experiment so far.
The Horizon Experiment
In a post made to Bluesky on June 13th, 2024, Pichetshote described the premise behind The Horizon Experiment.
“I made my friends a challenge: Give me a protagonist of color in a popular genre where if your hero’s BG [background] changed, your story wouldn’t work,” Pinchetshote explained. “The result’s THE HORIZON EXPERIMENT, a showcase of 5 1-shot pilots for potential new series all published by Image Comics.”
The five one-shots are:
The Manchurian by Pichetshote, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson & Jeff Powell: “a hapa (half-English/half Chinese) James Bond running covert missions in America for China.”
The Sacred Damned by Sabir Pirzada, Michael Walsh & Becca Carey: “a horror book following a Muslim exorcist.”
Moon Dogs by Tananarive Due, Kelsey Ramsay, José Villarrubia & Powell: “East African werewolves secretly living in Miami about what it’s like to be a minority w/n a minority.”
Motherf*ckin’ Monsters by J. Holtham & Michael Lee Harris: “an Evil Dead for blerds.”
Finders/Keepers by Vita Ayala, Skye Partridge & Carey: “a reverse Indiana Jones who steals from museums to bring artifacts back to their native cultures.”
Alongside Will Dennis, Pichetshote will be co-editing each of the five issues in what he describes as his “‘1 night only’ return to editing.”
Arriving in September
The first of the five one-shots, The Manchurian, arrives at your Local Comic Shop on September 25th, 2024 with a Final Order Cutoff of September 2nd. The remaining four one-shots will arrive monthly thereafter.
Will you be checking out The Horizon Experiment when it arrives this autumn? Be sure and let The Beat know what you think, either here in the comment section or over at our page on Bluesky.
