Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis is a timely and timeless original graphic novel by EFF journalist Dave Maass and artist Patrick Lay, based on a suppressed opera written by two concentration camp prisoners. In 1943 Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, two prisoners at Hitler’s Terezín concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, created a gripping one-act opera. They did not live to see their masterpiece performed. This fall, Berger Books and Dark Horse Comics present their story in a form that the two authors never imagined: as a riveting graphic novel that combines dystopian sci-fi, mythic fantasy, and zombie horror to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience.
Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis is written by Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Investigations Dave Maass and illustrated by Patrick Lay, and features character designs by Ezra Rose and lettering by Richard Bruning. The graphic novel’s extensive back section will include a historical essay on the opera’s creators, the horrific circumstances in which it was created, and the unlikely path of the composition’s survival. The book also includes Kien’s artwork, photographs, and more.
In Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, it is everyone against everyone. The book — like the opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, that inspired it — presents a world where Atlantis never sank, but instead became a technologically advanced tyranny, one where a power-mad buffoonish Emperor declares all-out war. Death goes on a labor strike, creating a hellscape where everyone fights, but no one dies. Can the spirit of Life stop this terror with the power of love?
Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis goes on sale in bookstores on November 7th and in comic shops on November 8th, 2023.
Source: Graphic Policy
