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NYCC ’19: AfterShock Reveals MMA Graphic Novel “Kill A Man”

By | October 5th, 2019
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Cover by Alec Morgan

AfterShock Comics have announced “Kill A Man,” a new original graphic novel by writers Steve Orlando and Philip Kennedy Johnson, artist Alec Morgan, and letterer Jim Campbell set to be released in Summer 2020. “Kill A Man” begins in the early days of Mixed Martial Arts competition when kickboxer DJ Bellyi slurs his queer opponent, Xavier Mayne, in the ring, and is beaten to death as Bellyi’s young son, James, watches in the stands. Years pass, and James becomes an MMA star hoping to surpass the potential of his father. When he is publicly outed at a press conference, James loses his endorsements, his fans turn their backs on him, his family abandons him, and the only person left to train James is Xavier, the man who killed his father.

In the press release, Orlando spoke about the themes of the book and how fighting itself is an allegory “for the fight each and every one of us go through to prove ourselves to ourselves.” He continued, “‘Kill A Man’ is about forging your own identity in the shadow of the past… This is a complicated book, one that brings up a lot of the struggles I personally went through as a bisexual man growing up in Central New York. The fight for respect and for the right to happiness is often daily for LGBTQ+ people, and it certainly often remains so for me. James Bellyi is the type of imperfect, and hopefully triumphant hero I wanted to see when I was young – to show that the journey is long, it can be hard, we can at times be our own worst enemy, but we CAN go the distance, we can succeed on terms WE set, rather than what society tells us.”

Johnson echoed these personal sentiments by noting how “‘Kill A Man’ is about deciding what kind of person you want to be… [When Orlando] reached out with this compelling story idea, it immediately struck me as a story that would obviously be very important and personal to him, but I quickly discovered that its themes were personal to me too. The idea of defying the expectations that other people have for your life, of showing the world who you are when you’ve been backed into a corner… these are experiences I’ve had, and having the opportunity to tell that story with pros like Steve and Alec is a real pleasure and a privilege.”

For Morgan, the range of action-sequences and quieter, personal moments in the comic book represent a challenge for the artist: “The conflict between characters, the struggle with identity, public scrutiny, and the media, the spectacle of fights and their choreography… There’s a lot to capture. My goal is to get into the story and do my best to wring everything out and get it on the page.”

“Kill A Man” will be released in AfterShock Comics’s prestige-style format in two over-sized 60-page volumes.


//TAGS | NYCC '19

Erik Hyska

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