Steven Grant's MORTAL SOULS
© 2002 Steven Grant

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Steven Grant's MORTAL SOULS

Avatar Press will publish Steven Grant's MORTAL SOULS, a three-issue mini-series written by Grant with art by Phil Xavier. Described as "a bloody, bitter mix of crime and horror," the project will debut in March.

"Grant's efforts in both mainstream and indy comics have been a major contribution to the evolution of the comics scene for over a decade," says Avatar Press editor-in-chief William Christensen. "His work on the original PUNISHER mini-series was a key part of the mid-80's mainstream comics renaissance."

"You can't do what you want for corporate comics, which are now focusing on 'safe' projects," Grant says. "they're not interested in creator-owned projects. They want to be polite, to not rock the boat, to maintain control. 

"Only companies like Avatar Press now give writers free reign to do truly interesting or innovative work, especially work like MORTAL SOULS, with ideas and themes that really haven't been tackled before in comics, that mixes genres and hopefully breaks new ground.

"I don't get notes from Avatar saying things like, 'make it more like HELLBLAZER' or 'make the hero nicer so we won't scare off movie studios.' The work is pure, it's clean, it's what I want it to be."

Here's how Avatar describes the book:

"A project grounded in both crime and horror, Mortal Souls reaches beyond both of those nightmare genres. Pursuing an unpredictable killer, police detective Eric Sharpe watches his life turn into a waking nightmare as the killer, in her last living act, gives him 'the sight.'

"He discovers the existence of Qelipoth, which literally means the husks of the dead. They're dangerous creatures, once men but now without souls, consumed by their own emptiness and hunger and hating the living for the mere condition of being completely alive. The Qelipoth not only exist, they control the world. Now the only one who can tell who they are, Sharpe becomes their #1 enemy and arget, and possibly the last hope of humanity on Earth."