The beloved Panel Syndicate webcomic Bad Karma—an action/comedy
in the grand tradition of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, by bestselling writer Alex de Campi (Dracula, Motherf**ker!, Parasocial) and artists Ryan Howe (True War Stories; Daisy Blackwood: Pilot for Hire) and Dee Cunniffe (Indigo Children, Star Wars, She-Hulk)—will be collected in its gigantic 312-page entirety and published in print, hardcover format for the first time this November from Image Comics.
After finding out Aaron Carter, an innocent man, is on Death Row for a mercenary job they did 10 years ago, down-on-their luck army veterans Sully and Ethan go on a Christmas road trip to free him. Turns out nobody’s interested in Aaron’s innocence, but someone is very interested in making sure Sully and Ethan don’t live to see the New Year. They just didn’t figure on one thing: Ethan’s ex-wife Cheryl.
“Bad Karma is my love letter to trashy military action-thrillers and buddy comedies,” said De Campi. “But instead of the hypercompetent lone wolf hero with the dead family, we’ve got Ethan: divorced, discharged, disabled, and still (with his best friend Sully and his ex-wife Cheryl) absolutely going to kick a dent into the military-industrial complex. Look, you just don’t mess with South Boston.”
Howe added: “Bad Karma is a treasure trove of storytelling for an artist. You’ve got explosions, car chases, helicopters, gun fights, and knock down brawls, but what’s driving all that (literally at times, ha!) are two very broken friends, taking on a system that already chewed them up and spit them out in their prime, and it’s not going to take it any easier on them now. Action is only as big as the quiet moments are small, and there are times you can hear a pin drop as Ethan and Sully work towards fixing the mistakes of their past.”
Bad Karma hardcover edition (ISBN: 978-1534399365) will be available at local comic book shops on Wednesday, November 1 and independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Indigo on Tuesday, November 7.
Bad Karma will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
