Terror reigns in the kingdom once again, because EC Comics and Oni Press are teaming up once more for another installment of their dark fantasy anthology comic series, Cruel Kingdom. Titled Cruel Kingdom 2, this run will consist of six issues that dig into the gritty heart of grimdark fantasy, subverting tropes and slaying expectations. With a stellar group of all-star writers and artists bringing it to life, including David M. Booher (Canto), Matt Bors (The Toxic Avenger), Ryan Kelly (Lucifer), Lukas Ketner (Count Crowley) and more, Cruel Kingdom 2 promises to scratch that itch for fantasy stories that will haunt, entertain, and horrify you in equal measure.
The first issue, Cruel Kingdom 2 #1, releases on September 2. It's our great pleasure to give you an exclusive glimpse at its grotesquely beautiful cover artwork.
EC Comics is the historic publisher of boundary-pushing comics like Tales From the Crypt, MAD Magazine, and Weird Science, whose works have resisted attempts at censorship to continue influencing popular culture for more than seven decades. Oni Press is a multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher founded in 1997 whose works include groundbreaking comics and graphic novels like Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society, and Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun. Together, they make for a perfect team to plumb the savage recesses of fantastical realms in ways that are sure to sear the memory long after the last page is read.
The first Cruel Kingdom anthology series ran from January to April of 2025 across four issues, which were collected in an omnibus that released on January 13, 2026. Cruel Kingdom 2 is ratcheting things up a notch with even more issues and a slew of brutally gorgeous cover artwork.
Here's the official press release for Cruel Kingdom 2, which does a good job of not only filling in all the information you may wonder about this upcoming series, but also giving a taste for the sort of tongue-in-cheek tone and black humor you might expect to see in EC Comics' dark fantasy bonanza.
HEAVY IS THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN . . . UNTIL THE KING GETS IT LOPPED OFF! Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997, and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. are proud to announce CRUEL KINGDOM 2 #1 (of 6)! Welcome, traveler . . . back to the blood-drenched ramparts of ye olde EC Comics that yearn for MORE tales of sadistic sorcery and malevolent magic! Yes, draw your sword and start swinging, because CRUEL KINGDOM lives again this September with an ALL-NEW volume of fatal fantasy, told in the immortal EC Comics manner by a magnificently malicious cast of all-star storytellers!
In this CRUEL KINGDOM, there is no “happily ever after” . . . and sometimes the witch hunter becomes the hunted in the end, heh heh! Come, warm yourself by the pyre as vengeance-fueled writers David M. Booher (Canto), Matt Bors (The Toxic Avenger), and Jude Ellison S. Doyle (Dead Teenagers) turn the screws in tandem with axe-wielding artists Ryan Kelly (Lucifer), Lukas Ketner (Count Crowley), and David Lapham (Stray Bullets) to extract answers the burning question of every knight and squire: Must every wizard’s tower also have an executioner’s dungeon buried down below? At EC Comics, we say “YES, OF COURSE! NOW PROCEED WITH THE BEHEADING, YOU FOOL!”
Plus: Cower in fear as upcoming issues as EC Comics’ latest six-issue exercise in “black magic gone good” prepares to feature even more writers and artists with ogre’s taste for blood and bone, including John Arcudi (B.P.R.D.), Ramón F. Bachs (Star Wars), Sarah Gailey (Magic for Liars), Sami Kivelä (The Forever Home), Curt Pires (Fireborn, Super Mondo Mega Mutts), SOM (Crocodile Black), Alison Sampson (Department of Truth), and more!
If you thought the Dark Ages were scary, just wait for the return of EC Comics’ carnage-strewn ode to high fantasy and low blows in CRUEL KINGDOM 2 #1 (of 6) – storming the ramparts of your local comic shop on September 2nd with covers from legendary artists Mark Buckingham (Miracleman), Yanick Paquette (Batman Inc.), Shawn McManus (Fables), and Rian Hughes (The Multiversity).
In addition to the cover above by Mark Buckingham, Cruel Kingdom 2 also features a number of variant covers done by different artists. Check them out below:
The first issue of Cruel Kingdom 2 hits comic shops and digital retailers on September 2, 2026. For more updates about this and other titles from Oni Press, check them out on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.
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