Advent Comics, Black Creators Team Up on 'Epiphany Engine' Graphic Novel

More than 70 Black creators are teaming up with Advent Comics and more than 30 comic book and graphic novel publishers on Epiphany Engine, a 192-page graphic novel. Leading the project are Advent owner and editor-in-chief Tony Kittrell and editor and creator Joseph P. Illidge, who will serve as executive story editor. To fund the project, Advent Comics will launch a Kickstarter on Juneteenth.

Epiphany Engine will feature “an epic multiverse story, assembling iconic Black heroes and villains and original characters in an adventure that spans several chapters,” the publisher said, and “each chapter will showcase the work of a different creative team, giving Black creators from across the publishing world the opportunity to combine their powers.” 

Among the writers tapped for the project are Brandon Thomas, who will write the first chapter, as well as Rodney Barnes, Chriscross, Colleen Douglas, Jamale Igle, John Jennings, and Chuck Patton. Publisher involved in the project include 4th Wall Productions, Griot Enterprises, Konkret Comics, and Second Sight Publishing, among others.

Characters from across properties in the graphic novel will include:

• Danny J. Quick and 4th Wall Productions’s MMA ninja Aceblade
• Lonzo Starr and Konkret Comics’s Akolyte
• Dorphise Jean and Spirits Destiny Studios’s Spirit Destiny
• Andre Batts and Urban Style Comics Dreadlocks
• Michael Watson and Freestyle Komics’s Hotshot
• Ray Height and Studio Skye-Tiger's Midnight Tiger
• Jiba Molei Anderson and Griot Enterprises’s African deities superteam the Horsemen
• Tony Kittrell and Advent Comics’s Titan the Ultra Man
• Quinn McGowan and Legends Press’s Wildfire
• Vince White and the Powerverse’s Will Power

Epiphany Engine, according to the publisher, “follows the McKalis, a family of brilliant but grief-stricken scientists searching for their missing member Todd, who was lost in the multiverse after a botched experiment. However...their rescue attempt has accidentally ruptured the fabric of the multiverse...causing universes to bleed into each other and sending all four members into scattered destinations. The rupture has released a cosmic-level threat, the mysterious Abzylom, who wants to collapse and mold a new universe while destroying the McKalis. In order to save the multiverse and defeat their cosmic foe, the family must find each other and build an army of superheroes.”

This piece has been updated with further information.