Bloody horror meets the Jazz Age in Image Comics’ Jook Joint

Today is Image Expo, Image Comics’ extravaganza of announcements and new book reveals. And courtesy of Image, Polygon can share one of those announcements right now: Writer Tee Franklin and artist Maria Nguyen will be bringing bloody supernatural horror to Image readers with Jook Joint.

Franklin’s first graphic novel, Bingo Love, was published after a successful Kickstarter campaign funded it with nearly $60,000. The book follows two black queer women who fell in love in high school and were forced to separate by their prejudiced families. They reconnect decades later when they’re both grandmothers and rekindle their relationship.

Jook Joint looks to be something very different from a sweet story about true love winning out in old age, considering that the preview pages alone contain a woman unhinging her jaw to take half of a man’s face off in a single bite.

Image calls Jook Joint a “time-period horror piece about a brothel/jazz club exposing the social evils of racism, rape, and inequality.” Nguyen’s art “pivots from soft, sensual elegance to visceral horror” — a fact that’s readily apparent in the preview pages below:

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen

Tee Franklin, Maria Nguyen