This week, Organisms From an Ancient Cosmos arrives in comic shops and to celebrate, S. Craig Zahler, writer and illustrator, shares a letter to comic retailers, readers, and fans! Read the letter below:After filming three movies, recording nine albums, and writing eight novels, I returned in 2019 to my first artistic passion, illustration, which has always remained a strong interest of mine. Inspired by both vintage and modern comics, I drew, wrote, and lettered my debut graphic novel, Forbidden Surgeries of the Hideous Dr. Divinus, which was published in 2021 by Floating World Comics.
I began working on my second piece in this medium at the very beginning of lockdown and finished it shortly after I received my first vaccine more than a year later. Organisms from an Ancient Cosmos was the most time-consuming artistic undertaking of my entire life, a large-scale science fiction work inspired by my favorite s.f. authors Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, Arthur C. Clarke, and Stephen Baxter, movies like Moon and 2001, and comics such at The Eternauts, Weird Science and Ode to Kirihito. I found this creative experience to be singularly gratifying and am thrilled to have the piece published by Dark Horse Comics, whose books I have read since the eighties.
- S. Craig Zahler