The 1983 cult sword and sorcery film Death stalker produced by Roger Corman is revived, this time as 21st century comic book.
Guns N’ Roses rocker Slash and Vault Comics are teaming up for the comic, which also includes Shout! Studios, which owns the rights to the Corman Library, and Raven Banner Entertainment.
Tim Seeley, best known for his work as a co-creator of horror comics Hacking/slashing and DCs Grayson, writes the comic featuring art-incorporating Jim Terry. The duo previously worked together for West of sunset, a western vampire comic from Vault. Steven Kostanski, the artist and filmmaker who directed segments for the film V/H/S And ABC of death movies and horror movies like Psycho Goreman, wrote the story for what is described as a new show.
Death stalker followed a warrior named Deathstalker who is sent on a quest to find a magical amulet, chalice and sword and ends up battling an evil ruler and sorcerer named Munkar. Along the way there are orges, warrior tournaments and plenty of naked flesh.
The film was part of a wave of cheap-looking fantasy films that followed the success of Conan the Barbarian. Death stalker was known for its poster of fantasy illustrator Boris Vallejo and featured Playboy model and former Hugh Hefner girlfriend Barbi Benton and Lana Clarkson, a model making her feature film debut who would go on to become a sword and sorcery mainstay. (Clarkson was murdered by producer Phil Spector in 2003.)
“Us Death stalker is a reinterpretation of that beautiful piece of sword and sorcery from the 80s,” Slash said in a statement. “With fantasy you get a little bit of everything: horror, magic, sex, suspense, blood, guts, swords and craziness. You know, all those things you can’t look away from. And that is what we bring.”
Wassel said, “The whole idea of this project is to balance the nostalgia for the so-bad-it’s-good fantasy films of the 1980s with the storytelling sensibilities of our time.”
The project will launch in October with a Kickstarter campaign for a deluxe, oversized hardcover edition of the book (see a preliminary mockup image below), and will also be available in both single-issue comic books and paperback in 2024 formats through comic books. shops and bookstores everywhere.
The creative team draws on their memories of the ’80s to create the comic and hopes it translates to the page.
“I’m a child of the ’80s. I remember my father buying our first VCR in 1982. And I remember the whole series of strange and imaginative sword and sorcery VHS tapes that followed,” Seeley said. “Death stalker has been close to my heart since I was completely disturbed and excited by it at far too young an age.”
Terry said: “Being young at the birth of the VHS explosion was magical, and it felt like a time when people were telling incredibly imaginative stories with limited resources – that charm and creativity would be hard to recreate today, but it’s a sensation to enjoy that energy with it Death stalker.”
Vault has already found success in the sword-and-sorcery realm Barbaric, it is a comic strip centering on a barbarian and a talking axe, possessed by a demon. That title is the company’s best-selling book and has many features in common Death stalker.
Thanks to Vault
