Dark Regards is easily the most intriguing new indie comics to come along in quite some time. It’s a book whose back-story is as wild and crazy as the comic itself. But you can be the judge in our exclusive preview of Dark Regards #1.
Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive look inside the new series, but beware of some NSFW language ahead!
Dark Regards is the brainchild of comedian/writer/musician Dave Hill and artist Artyom Topilin (Cruel Universe, I Hate This Place). The four-issue series is inspired by Hill’s own experiences forming a fictional Satanic metal band called Witch Taint and the unexpected spiral of chaos that ensued.
Here’s Oni Press’ official description of the series:
Two decades ago, Dave Hill and his first band set out to rock their high school auditorium in a fury of heavy metal hellfire. They failed miserably. Years later, Dave has made a new life for himself as a rising star in the New York comedy scene – a career where getting laughed at on stage is the entire point and not just a tragic consequence. But when Dave’s metal ambitions are re-awakened by the über self-serious, “Satanic” genre of Norwegian black metal, Dave creates a ridiculously hyperbolic alter ego and a band to match that, together, reignite the spark of his forgotten rock ‘n roll fantasy. But when Dave’s internet-fueled rumors of Witch Taint – a metal band “so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area” when their music is played – spreads all the way to Europe, his story will spiral dangerously out of control as Norway’s most extreme black metal butchers come to reap their revenge . . . and put everything and everyone Dave holds dear in the crosshairs (of their axes, which, truth be told, don’t actually have crosshairs, but, hey, it’s a metaphor).
“A few years back, I sat down in my underwear late one night and decided to let my obsession with Norwegian black metal run wild by emailing a Norwegian black metal record label, telling them all the bands on their label sucked despite the fact that I had never listened to any of them, and suggesting they sign my extremely extreme black metal band Witch Taint, which had yet to record any music and didn’t even exist beyond the band name I’d just made up on the spot,” said Hill in a statement. “This first email led to months of correspondence with the record label that I never intended for anyone to see. But the Internet being the Internet, eventually a lot of people saw it and things got nuts. Now, beyond my wildest dreams, this story has become my first comic book series Dark Regards, written by me and illustrated by the amazing Artyom Topilin. If you don’t devour every single issue, you are basically insane.”
Dark Regards #1 is priced at $4.99 and will be released on May 13, 2025.
For more exclusive comic book previews, check out a look at the final issue of TMNT: The Last Ronin II and The Dark Knight Returns-inspired Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
