Image Comics Announces ‘The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs’ One-Shot

by Olly MacNamee

Multi-Award winning author Tananarive Due (The Reformatory, The Keeper) and rising star Kelsey Ramsay (Dark Spaces: Good Deeds) are teaming up on a new werewolf horror one-shot, The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs. along with colourist José Villarrubia and letterer Jeff Powell.

“Moon Dogs is the third comic inThe Horizon Experiment series of one-shots, all centering on original protagonists from marginalized backgrounds set in a popular genre, led by Eisner and Harvey Award-winning The Good Asian and Infidel creator Pornsak Pichetshote.

“Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs follows a Black family of lycanthropes of East African descent—who call themselves Moon Dogs—as older sister Nala, her parents, and her boyfriend try to protect her teen brother Kai as he gets caught in the middle of a burgeoning war between a savage pack of werewolves and the Miami police force. After a violent attack, Miami locals are starting to learn that werewolves are not just a myth, and Nala’s family—who are minorities within a minority—find themselves drawn into a very dangerous situation.”

This one-shot will explore common themes of “privilege, power, and oppression, highlighting sharpened conflicts over identity and community in society, told through the lens of a werewolf story.”

As with the other two one-shots this comic acts as a kind of pilot and, depending on its success, could well lead to more. This one shot features the following covers:

Cover A by Kelsey Ramsay and José Villarrubia
Cover B by Tula Lotay (connecting)
Cover C by Tula Lotay (1:25 foil incentive, connecting)

About this one-shot, writer Due states:

“As a writer who is known for novels and short stories—and who has written screenplays—delving into comics has been the best of both worlds: granting me the immediacy and freedom to tell stories my way, and the benefit of working with talented collaborators to bring the images to life on the page,” said Due. “Moon Dogs is an homage to my roots in Miami, where I grew up and worked as a newspaper reporter. Anyone who has been to Miami knows that its eclectic population is the perfect home for undercover werewolves—like, OF COURSE.”

With great guidance from my editors, Pornsak and Will, I wanted to tell a story of what it feels like to feel doubly marginalized—and also how we can learn to exercise power without being corrupted by it. The great thing about comics, as in Hollywood, is that the script is only the starting point for the story, so seeing the thrilling illustrations by Kelsey Ramsay and the great artistic team is like getting a movie adaptation in record time. I’m so excited to share it!

It wasn’t difficult deciding whether I wanted to be a part of The Horizon Experiment. An innovative and inspiring group of creators that are undertaking something original and exciting, you say? It was a fast yes for me. Tananarive’s vivid and character-rich Moon Dogs script solidified that decision too—it made me feel like I was right there in Miami hunched between the rival werewolf clans,” said Ramsay. “It was so much fun and such a pleasure to work on. I’m so happy this fresh take on lycanthrope horror was created by Tananarive and supported by powerhouse editors Pornsak and Will. It came together with incredible collaborators José doing colours and Jeff doing letters. It’s an honour to be a part of this project.”

Co-editor Pichetshote added:

“I’m jealous of readers discovering Tananarive and Kelsey’s work for the first time. Tananarive’s latest novel was praised by no less than Stephen King and now she’s bringing her uniquely intimate mythology building skills and lyrical prose to comics,” said Pichetshote. “Meanwhile, in a very short time, Kelsey has rocketed up every comics editor’s radar to the degree you’ll be seeing her in non-stop high-profile projects soon. So, watching these two combine their awesome talents to create something distinctly unique has been an utter delight. I can’t wait for readers to discover the world of Moon Dogs.”