Follow A Path Of Dark Reinvention In BOOM! Studio’s ‘Crocodile Black’
by Scott Redmond
As the world changes and crumbles around him, one young man finds himself moving down an unforeseen dark new path. This is part of the core focus of the newly announced BOOM! Studios’ series Crocodile Black.
Arriving in May, this macabre noir thriller comes from Eisner-nominated writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Incredible Hulk, Action Comics) and rising star artist SOM (Brigands). Set during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, main character Danny witnesses something during a routine delivery job. It changes him forever and sends him into the darkness which is as black as a pair of crocodile-skin boots he has become enamored with.
“Crocodile Black is a story about dark reinvention. It’s about hidden trauma, unchecked obsession, the power that masks give us, and a dead man’s black crocodile-skin boots,” Johnson said. “It’s about a COVID-era kid with no prospects finding something he never knew he wanted, and using it to become someone he never knew he wanted to be: a dangerous man.”
Johnson spoke about how he was “fascinated with how many people left behind jobs they hated or college programs they were never that interested in, and pursued paths they’d been afraid to before” during the height of the pandemic.
Crocodile Black is a response to this phenomenon, and he said he hopes it will “leave readers asking themselves, ‘Given the opportunity, could I be capable of great things, too … or terrible things?'”
On the artistic front, Johnson said SOM “is a visionary, a genius of an artist” and the only choice to draw this series.
“It was Philip’s writing that pulled me in,” SOM added. “He has an incredible understanding of the medium and creates brutally harrowing moments page after page with such aplomb, that it becomes a joyride for someone like me. It pushes me to create visuals that could do justice to the writing. I truly hope this labour of love fascinates you all the same way it fascinates me.”
Continuing, SOM said that the “people at BOOM! were an absolute treat to work with” and that editor Ramiro Portnoy “understands an artist’s creative approach, and went out of his way to give me the time I needed to visualize the story.”
Crocodile Tears #1 will be available on May 8.
