Dark Horse Announces Mike Mignola’s ‘Uri Tupka And The Gods: Another Story From Lands Unknown’
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
It took me a second to compose myself when this announcement hit my desk.
Yeaaaah! My editor Brendan said “Mignola is your baseball” to me today. To understand what weight that carries, B can tell you the legend of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson while hanging upside down from the side of a mountain, and without missing a beat, will go into the details of where each baseball team’s uniform came from, the shifting tides of what team moved where, who made what bubblegum to go into trading card wax packs…
The man is like… I don’t know… the Pokédex of Baseball.
So for him to pay me such a high compliment because I got all excited about the announcement of this book warmed my heart.
I’m beyond thrilled to talk about this book, as Mike Mignola is expanding the Lands Unknown universe with a new graphic novel coming next year titled Uri Tupka and The Gods: Another Story from Lands Unknown.
The Lands Unknown series kicked off earlier this year with the anthology of folklore-inspired fantasy stories Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown. Bowling With Corpses was an absolute double delight and is easily one of my favorite books… ever. I mean that. Not just in comics, but in all of media anywhere ever. Bowling With Corpses is the kind of thing you hope to find every time you wander into a new bookstore or ghost-infested antique shop.
It’s not lost on me that even though the Lands Unknown do not share a universe with the Hellboy or Baltimore worlds, that axe up there in the image above bears a striking resemblance to the axe from Miss Truesdale, but these things could just be coincidences or fun Easter Eggs.
Bowling With Corpses and other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown, which is already in its third printing with a fourth being prepared, really showcases the range Mignola has as a storyteller and fable maker. Uri Tupka and The Gods will be written and drawn by Mike Mignola with colors by Dave Stewart, a colorist who I think perfectly pairs with Mignola’s shadow and line.
Uri Tupka and The Gods: Another Story from Lands Unknown will follow a wayward theologian across the Lands Unknown on a quest to prove that ancient, powerful gods shaped the world. Uri’s journey puts him face to face with mythical creatures, thieves, dragons, and a tomb of unspeakable horror. But nothing can prepare the unlikely adventurer for what he learns about the universe or his role in it.
“This is the first of two books tracing the life of Uri Tupka, former Doctor of Theology but now heretic, on the run as he looks for the truth about the gods,” explains Mignola. “See Uri barely escape one disaster after another—pirates, bandits, witches and demons, giants and monsters. There is also a talking cat and a queen of the vegetables because, of course, why wouldn’t there be?
“This one covers a whole lot of ground, and we get to see more of the world that was introduced in Bowling with Corpses. As with Bowling, this is some of the most fun I’ve ever had drawing comics. The more I wander around in this world, the more I want to see, the more I want to explore. I’m already well into the follow up book to this one (Uri Tupka and the Devils) with plans to do many more stories about this world. I feel that so far I’m still just scratching at the surface of this thing.”
I hope our modern myth-maker keeps scratching away, as I could dwell in these pages for years and be content.
Until next time, I will keep you up to date on all Mignola news as it hits my desk. If you have not checked out Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown go do that now. Also, that Hermit looks a little bit like Mike Mignola, right? Am I the only one seeing this?
