Steve Niles promises grim surprises in new Criminal Macabre thriller

By John Freeman on September 6, 2019

Criminal Macabre is back from US publisher Dark Horse – and bloodier than ever!

Series creator Steve Niles (City of Others, 30 Days of Night), newcomer artist Gyula Németh, and letterer Nate Piekos are teaming up to bring you the next chapter in the Cal McDonald saga: Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out.

The new series opens with supernatural detective Cal McDonald, found wandering the streets as a disheveled vagrant, and is ripped from his self-imposed retirement to resume his monster-killing career.

But Cal is reluctant to return to the fray. What has the hard-bitten investigator so shaken? It’s a long story that begins with a beautiful woman who happens to be a vampire… and ends with a bang.

“I’ve been writing Cal McDonald since I was in my 20’s and to this day he is the most fun to write,” says Steve. “I couldn’t be happier to see him come back with Gyula Nemeth doing the art.

“I think fans of Cal will be pleasantly surprised and hopefully a little horrified.”

• Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out #1 (of four) goes on sale 11th December 2019, and is available for pre-order at your local comic shop

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.