Clayton Crain is going back to where he started. The painter behind some of Marvel’s most striking Carnage, Ghost Rider and X-Force art has launched a new self-published series, Out of Hell, and the first issue is free to read on his website.
Out of Hell: Dark Veil #1 is written and painted by Crain, with script edits and letters by Greg Shepherd, and is coordinated by April Crain. It is published under the Rainbow Black Comics name. Readers can enter an email address on Crain’s site for instant digital access to the issue, along with the T-Minus prequel chapters that lead into it. Print copies are also available for anyone who wants a physical edition.
A stacked set of covers
The print release comes with variant covers from Simon Bisley, Alan Quah, Jonathan Glapion, KIBAR and Kevin Conrad, plus Crain’s own art, as Bleeding Cool reports. That lineup should appeal to the collectors who have followed Crain’s cover work for years.
From self-publisher to Marvel and back
Crain began as a self-publisher before breaking in professionally at Acclaim in 1998, where he penciled Shadowman. After work on Image and Todd McFarlane-adjacent books, he switched to digital painting in 2003, and Marvel quickly took notice. He drew the 2004 Venom vs. Carnage miniseries, co-creating Toxin, painted Garth Ennis’s two Ghost Rider miniseries, and defined the look of the 2008 to 2010 X-Force run with Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. He became one of the go-to artists for Carnage, and in recent years he has added traditional acrylic and oil painting to his cover work.
Giving away a first issue is a smart way to bring readers into a creator-owned book, especially one with a painted style as distinctive as Crain’s. More issues are planned, and Crain’s site is the place to follow the series.
Creator-owned comics keep landing big names this fall, from Out of Hell to Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang reuniting for Image’s Roam. Out of Hell: Dark Veil #1 is available to read now.
