How many lives would you pay to keep your world from changing? In The Picture of Everything Else, a new horror series from publisher Vault Comics, the painter who first captured Dorian Gray in immortal art returns to expand his vision to the entire city around him. But just as Gray was a decaying monster beneath the unchanging facade, this 20th-century tale has terror lurking beneath the surface.
The Picture of Everything Else comes from writer Dan Watters (DC Comics' Lucifer) and artist/colorist Kishore Mohan (web anthology Aces Weekly) with letterer Aditya Bidikar and designer Tim Daniel. The series is published through Vault Comics, a rapidly-growing new comics company founded in 2016, known for unique projects like Max Bemis and Eryk Donovan's surreal Heavy and Brandon Sanderson collab Dark One.
The inspiration for The Picture of Everything Else is The Picture of Dorian Gray, the once-banned 1890 novel by Oscar Wilde whose fin de siecle hedonism shocked the British literary scene. The story's immortal antihero has lived on in recent works like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Penny Dreadful. But The Picture of Everything Else takes a different angle on the classic, focusing instead on the supernatural force behind the story: Dorian Gray's painter.
In the 20th-century setting of The Picture of Everything Else, the city of Paris is struck by a wave of killings that defy reason. A pair of art thieves discover paintings that reflect injuries that should have appeared on the victims, uncovering a mystery of a deadly art project that could change the world.
Here's the extended preview of the upcoming first issue:
- THE PICTURE OF EVERYTHING ELSE #1
- Writer: Dan Watters
- Artist & Colorist: Kishore Mohan
- Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
- Designer: Tim Daniel
- Cover A: Kishore Mohan
- Cover B: Nathan Gooden
- Cover C: Adam Gorham
- Cover D: Anand RK
- On Sale: 12/23/2020
- As the 20th century dawns, art promises to change the world...and steep it in blood. A rash of impossible killings sweep through Paris, tearing the rich and beautiful apart in their beds. When two art thieves stumble upon the portraits of the victims damaged in the exact same manner they died, it appears the man who once painted the immortal portrait of Dorian Gray has returned-with darker plans for future works.
- From the minds of Dan Watters (Coffin Bound, Lucifer, Deep Roots) and Kishore Mohan comes a haunting balance of depravity and beauty.
Series author Dan Watters describes The Picture of Everything Else as "a book about cities and people", one that looks at the eternal cycle of growth and collapse that every civilization goes through and asks what it would be worth to halt that process. He imagines someone who could capture a city as it is through the power of art, making all the sacrifices it would take to make the entire world ageless.
Artist Kishore Mohan views the book with creative excitement, remarking on the opportunity to stretch their artistic wings: "I remember thinking to myself that here’s a story that’ll let me explore all that I’ve wanted to with my craft." Mohan brings a decade of experience from several media industries together to form The Picture of Everything Else from several artistic styles, combining influence from literary classics and period works like Penny Dreadful and Ripper Street with Watters' distinctive storytelling style.
For gothic horror readers in need of a bloody fix, Watters and Mohan have the tools. Passion, intrigue, and murder form a portrait of a city tearing at the canvas. The Picture of Everything Else #1 will be available from local comics shops and digital providers on December 23, 2020.