FIRST WATCH: Author Darin Strauss Makes Comic Debut With A New ‘Twist’ On A Dickens Classic

Steve Batley

6 years ago

Dark Horse and Berger Books are pleased to announce the next series in the critically acclaimed imprint, Olivia Twist, a female-centric futuristic fable.

In a dangerous future London, teenage orphan Olivia Twist joins the Esthers, a rag-tag gang of girl thieves, to save a boy she barely knows. Led by the elegant, queenly Fagin, they steal from the rich inhabitants of Vertical City while battling the illegally-augmented Trads for control of the streets. But Olivia’s life of newfound friendships in this world of internment camps and dark technology gets even more complicated when she discovers that she has more power and wealth than she’s ever dreamed of. But it comes at an unfathomable cost.

Olivia Twist marks the first time internationally bestselling novelist Darin Strauss (Chang and Eng, The Real McCoy, More Than It Hurts You) will venture into the comics medium. Joined by short fiction author Adam Dalva (Tin House, Guernica) as co-writer, artist Emma Vieceli (Vampire Academy, The Adventures of Supergirl) and colorist Lee Loughridge (Briggs Land) all join to help bring the series to illustrated life. Top women comics artists, Vanesa Del Rey, Tula Lotay, Sana Takeda and Emma Vieceli will also create the gorgeous cover art for this reimagining of the classic character.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his memoir Half a Life said of the exciting new project “I’ve been a comics fan ever since I was a kid, and to take the storytelling genius of Dickens into the world of comics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To work with Karen Berger, whom I’ve been a fan of since ‘Swamp Thing,’ my friend the brilliant Adam Dalva, and the incomparable Emma Vieceli is a dream come true.”

Karen Berger has been a powerful force in the comics industry for over 25 years and since her time heading up DC’s mature-reader imprint Vertigo in 1993 has had a knack for converting prose writers into comic masterminds. Now she brings the same skill to Dark Horse Comics as internationally bestselling novelist Darin Strauss launches Olivia Twist at Berger Books this fall. Karen joined forces with Dark Horse Comics in 2017 to launch her eponymous imprint Berger Books with top talent such as Anthony Bourdain, Ann Nocenti, David Aja, Dave Gibbons, Mat Johnson, Warren Pleece, Paul Pope and Joel Rose. Berger Books launched in 2018 with inaugural titles Hungry Ghosts, Incognegro: Rennaisance, Mata Hari, The Seeds and The Originals: Expanded Edition.

The first issue of a four-part miniseries, Olivia Twist goes on sale September 19, 2018, and will be available for pre-order at your local comic shop later this month for $4.99.

Select praise for DARIN STRAUSS AND HALF A LIFE (Named one of the best books of the year by NPR and The Plain Dealer)

“Lyrical and haunting.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Painfully raw and beautifully written.”—Los Angeles Times

“A remarkable, beyond-brave memoir.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Elegant, painful, stunningly honest . . . huge [and] heartbreaking.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A book that inspires admiration, sentence by sentence . . . This is a memoir in its finest form, a fully imagined and bittersweet book that transcends a single misstep.”—Chicago Tribune

“Darin Strauss has spent a good part of his adult life reliving, regretting and reflecting on a single, split-second incident. Half a Life is a starkly honest account of that fateful moment and his life thereafter . . . penetrating, thought-provoking.”—The Washington Post