First Look: NIGHT PEOPLE #1 – Creators Chris Condon & Brian Level Pierce the Veil of Barry Gifford’s Violently Surreal Neo-Noir Classic on March 6th

By Carlos Morales

on January 26, 2024

Oni Press, multiple Eisner- and Harvey Award-winning publisher of groundbreaking graphic fiction since 1997, is proud to unveil the first look inside NIGHT PEOPLE #1—the first razor-sharp issue of the new series from literary icon Barry Gifford, the internationally renowned creator of Wild at Heart and cowriter of David Lynch’s neo-noir masterpiece Lost Highway, as adapted by breakout writer Chris Condon (That Texas Blood, The Enfield Gang Massacre) and incisive artist Brian Level (Cosmic Ghost Rider, Poison Ivy) in a 30-page, ad-free first issue debuting in comic shops everywhere on March 6, 2024.

Based on the follow-up to Gifford’s breakthrough novel Wild at Heart (adapted into the Palme d’Or-winning feature film directed by David Lynch and starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, and Willem Dafoe), NIGHT PEOPLE follows a fascinating and fully realized cast of outsiders, loners, and lost souls through four interlocking narratives as they travel a path of intoxication, lust, and spontaneous violence from New Orleans to Egypt City, Florida, and back again.

In our first tale of desperation, fanaticism, and murder, as told by Gifford, Condon, and Level, two ex-convicts—the inseparable lovers Big Betty Stalcup and Miss Cutie Early—are out on parole using their newfound freedom to purify the world of men’s evil influence . . . leaving a trail of mutilated bodies in their wake. As the psychotic dimensions of their star-crossed romance—and the twisting paths that led them to their fateful meeting at the Fort Sumatra Detention Center for Wayward Women—come into full view, their experiment in righteousness culminates in the kidnapping of Rollo Lamar, a kindly attorney whom Betty and Cutie abduct just to see if they can reeducate at least one man on the planet before the demise of civilization.

Pairing Condon with a different acclaimed artist on each of the series’ 30-page issues—beginning with Brian Level and followed by Eisner Award nominee Alexandre Tefengki (The Good Asian, Once Upon a Time at the End of the World), Artyom Topilin (I Hate This Place, Creepshow), and Marco Finnegan (Crossroad Blues)—NIGHT PEOPLE #1’s star-studded debut features covers by a mesmerizing lineup of comics talent, including multiple Eisner Award winner J.H. Williams III (The Sandman: Overture, Promethea), multiple Eisner Award nominee Joëlle Jones (Wonder Girl, Lady Killer), rising star Jacob Phillips (That Texas Blood, The Enfleld Gang Massacre), and GLAAD Media Award winner and interior artist Brian Level (Poison Ivy, Lazarus).

For some people, it’s always midnight. . . . Join them to travel down an interstate of dark elusive dreams when NIGHT PEOPLE #1 debuts in comic shops everywhere on March 6, 2024.

Praise for Barry Gifford’s NIGHT PEOPLE

“Gifford’s night people are pure American. . . . Pure in their madness . . . [and] in their evil.”

—NPR

“A lively and lunatic underworld of mobsters, motor-mouthed oddballs, profound innocents, and other desperadoes.”—VICE

“William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

“Unsettling. . . . The kinds of people who always seem to show up at night because they carry their own private night with them.”—Los Angeles Times

“[A] somehow contemporary America that is threaded with equal parts grit and grace.”—LA Review of Books