B. Radtz
Earth’s most dangerous hacker is captured and forced on a suicide mission into a haunted house on Mars.
Synopsis:
A hot-headed hacker is forced onto a team of corpo scum tasked with retrieving a dangerous piece of tech from a haunted house. She must survive double-crossing teammates and the bizarre mysterious horrors within.
Mission at the Mansion: High above the long dead Mars colony, atop Olympus Mons, looms Emmeric Deschutes’ mansion. Inside shadows twist, ancient automated defenses cycle, corpses rot and a priceless technology lays dormant, waiting for the corporate Echo Team to retrieve it.
An Unstable Team: The Deschutes corporation has assembled a team of experts to retrieve the tech–Cass is an anti-corporate terrorist hacker, forced on the mission against her will. Fozli is a junkie empath with a sixth sense that suffers PTSD from corpo wars. Paz is one of the most powerful psionics that’s ever lived, but her powers make her unstable. Ryker is a company man, in it for the paycheck, but quickly growing disillusioned with the Deschutes Corporation. Lastly, Morgan is their mission leader who knows more than he lets on. Together they combat the horrors on Mars while battling to keep their sanity.
A Cruel MacGuffin: The Core is a bottled singularity; the matrix in a box. Digital immortality. Inside it are the ghosts of the people who once lived on Mars. The Deschutes corporation’s secret plan is to retrieve the Core and place a price on afterlife. Little does the team know that the tech’s creator now resides inside the Core as a merciless, sadistic god a la I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.
The Hacker’s Choice: After escaping the haunted mansion, the Hacker must return the tech to the corporation in exchange for her freedom back on Earth, or destroy it, dooming herself, but ending the suffering of her teammates, and other souls stuck inside the Core.
Creators:
Zach Chapman (Writer/Letterer)
Ruairi Coleman (Illustrator)
Steve Canon (Colorist whole series)
Maja Opacic (Colorist issue #4)
Kev Ketner (Editor)
Deanna Soukiasian (Scout Editor)
Creator Quote
“Scout’s been putting out some great books these last couple of years. To share shelf space with Pulp Bytes, By The Horns, Grit and Count Draco is a real honor”. – Zach Chapman (writer/creator)
Reviews & Testimonials
“Zach Chapman’s comics are a true horror sicko’s delight. Every panel is a celebration of horror at its most fun. Gnarly creatures, wacky science fiction nightmares, and the kind of characters who make you howl with laughter when they meet their gruesome demise. I dare you to read these comics without a big slobbering grin across your face.” —Max Booth III, writer of We Need to Do Something on House of Blood, created by Zach Chapman
“Zach Chapman’s clever writing balances between 70’s Richard Matheson and EC’s Al Feldstein, yet uncontrived, contemporary, and grimly realized.” —Edwin Callihan, Gravely Unusual Magazine
