For the past several years, we’ve been delighted to share a preview of Mark Russell and Peter Snejbjerg’s “Monster Serials,” their ongoing tale of the Marquis du Cocoa and other copyright-infringement-free icons of breakfast cereal. Last year, the Marquis and his wife hosted the ousted king of the Leprechauns. The year before, we saw the ongoing assault of the malicious General Post. In 2021, the Marquis faces a fate worse than undeath — becoming hot cereal.
Not a lot of comics creators would have the courage to burn Count Chocula at the stake, let alone the imagination. But that’s exactly the predicament that the star of Ahoy Comics yearly Edgar Allen Poe’s Snifter of Blood anthology finds himself in this year when “A Devil’s Advocate” begins. We’re delighted, as usual, to preview this year’s issue, in which someone special stands up to defend the Marquis, presumably because it’s the right thing to do.
“The Monster Serials started, like some of my series do, as a joke on Facebook,” Mark Russell told Gizmodo. “But in taking it seriously and turning it into a comic book series with Peter and Tom, it’s become much more. We have, God help us, created a door into a sort of interactive universe for the cereal mascots of our youth. Or, at least, legally permissible facsimiles of them. And, weirdly, it is a universe of betrayal and regret where the power of breakfast destroys lives.”
The newest issue of Edgar Allen Poe’s Snifter of Blood arrives in comics stores on October 6.