Margaret Atwood Pens Superhero Graphic Novel for Dark Horse Comics

Posted on December 9, 2015

Margaret Atwood is embracing comics. The Booker Award winning author and poet has inked a deal with Dark Horse Comics to write her first graphic novel featuring a new superhero. Ms. Atwood, author of The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Heart Goes Last, will publish Angel Catbird. The new superhero's tale will be told in three graphic novels. The first graphic novel will hit bookstores in fall, 2016.

Ms. Atwood has collaborated with artist Johnnie Christmas (Sheltered) to give the new superhero a unique look. Ms. Atwood discussed her new creation: "I have concocted a superhero who is part cat, part bird. Due to some spilled genetic Super-Splicer, our hero got tangled up with both a cat and an owl; hence his fur and feathers, and his identity problems."

A cat and an owl in the same person? Yes, we can see how that would definitely cause some identity issues. The books are being published at the same time with Keep Cats Safe and Save Bird Lives, projects produced by Nature Canada, the oldest conservation charity in Canada.

Acquiring editor Daniel Chabon described the new project this way: "Imagine, if you will, a strange mix of Will Eisner's The Spirit, Grant Morrison and Chas Truog's Animal Man, and Ryan North and Erica Henderson's Squirrel Girl." And if that's not enough to get you hooked he added, "Angel Catbird is a humorous, action-driven, pulp-inspired story. And the only other thing I can tell you at this early date is to expect a lot of cat puns."

Angel Catbird will be released as a three volume series of 6 x 9–inch full-color trade paperbacks. Her novel Oryx and Crake is being adapted into a television series for HBO by Darren Aronofsky. We can't wait to see what Ms. Atwood and Johnnie Christmas have come up with.