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Red Sonja seeks resurrection magic in Dynamite's new Savage Tales Halloween Special
Creeping into your reading collection this fall, Dynamite Entertainment is delivering an early All Hallows' Eve treat in the form of the mystical 40-page Savage Tales: A Red Sonja Halloween Special, a timely release sure to elicit a litany of enthusiastic war cries — and SYFY WIRE has an exclusive preview of its inspiring adventures.
Charging into comic shop on Oct. 16, this spooky 28-page special comes courtesy of Eisner Award nominated writer Mark Russell (The Lone Ranger, The Riddler: Year of the Villain) and artist Jacob Edgar (James Bond: Moneypenny) with a shocking skeletal cover from Erica D'urso.
Its plotline is directly connected to the unfolding events of Red Sonja #9 and follows the young She-Devil with a Sword, Sonja The Red, as she embarks on a perilous journey to the Sorcerers of Wigur-Nomadene. There she attempts to convince the notorious wizards to bring her family and friends back to life, but learns that resurrection magic is accompanied by a terrible price.
Russell believes Red Sonja: Savage Tales provides a more rounded background on Sonja and underscores her central tragedy.
"Intentional or not, she seems to be bad news for everyone she cares about," Russell tells SYFY WIRE. "It tells the story of her first meeting with the Sorcerers of Wigur-Nomadene, the most powerful sorcerers in the world and her attempt to bargain with them for bringing back the lives of her lost loved ones. But, as we learn in the main series, you should always be careful when asking people obsessed with the next world for help in ours."
For Edgar, his inspiration for any project tends to start at Jack Kirby and go out from there.
"So I was looking at his work on Demon and New Gods specifically, which definitely has elements I felt like could translate into Sonja's world," Edgar explains to SYFY WIRE. "There's a page early on in our book that's probably the most Kirby-infused thing I've done in my career. I took a lot of cues from Mike Mignola's Hellboy as well, I was really trying to push the boldness of my shadows and spot blacks in this story. I'm a big fan of Mirko and Bob too, the work they've done on this series. They gave me a great foundation to work from.
"It was pretty surprising to me how deeply connected this issue is to the main storyline that Mark and the team have been building, he adds. "When I was first asked about drawing a Red Sonja Halloween special, I just assumed it was a fun one-off Sonja vs monster/zombie/etc type story. That would have been fun to do as well, but what this turned out to be really speaks to the world-building that we've been seeing from Mark and Co in this whole run. This story fleshes out what's going on in the main title and on its own is a real emotional gut-punch."
Journey into the sorcerers' lair in our exclusive 6-page preview of Savage Tales: A Red Sonja Halloween Special in the gallery below, then tell us if you'll indulge in this wicked one-shot when it drops Oct. 16.
