Enjoy this Halloween with Action Lab: Danger Zone's digital-first premiere of John and Ben Matsuya's MIDNIGHT MASSACRE!
MIDNIGHT MASSACRE
Writer(s): John Matsuya and Ben Matsuya
Artist Name(s): Ben Matsuya (Pencils), Ben Matsuya (Colors)
Cover Artist(s): Ben Matsuya (#1/#4), Jasen Smith (#2), Megan Huang (#3)
Editors: Shawn Gabborin, Nicole D’Andria
Color Assistant: Aaron Daly, Erin Fekete
Fonts: Blambots
Halloween is here and so is Calico Adventure Park’s annual Halloween extravaganza “Midnight Massacre!” But when the corporate executives `conjure real monsters, all hell breaks loose… literally. It’s up to a jaded teenage employee to save the park and the world! For fans of Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Adventureland, and Cabin in the Woods, MIDNIGHT MASSACRE is a rollicking horror-comedy guaranteed to scare you out of your quarter-life crisis.
Creators John and Ben Matsuya share: "MIDNIGHT MASSACRE combines all the fun of waiting in line at a theme park with a horde of marauding monsters! If you’re looking for a comedic romp about a girl who’s working the Halloween shift at the amusement park, wasting away her talents and her passions, that’s extremely specific of you... But also, exactly what MIDNIGHT MASSACRE is about! We’ve got the undead, punk rock, roller coasters, Halloween, thrills, romance, late-stage capitalism, and maybe… just maybe a moral?"
They go on to talk about how relatable MIDNIGHT MASSACRE can be for readers, thanks to their protagonist: "I hope Amy strikes a recognizable chord with the readers and inspires them to shake up the system. Amy is a strong teenager coming into her own. The kind of teen we see a lot in our real world, but not enough in our media. She is intelligent, but discounted; she is postmodern, ironic, and smart, but like many in our millennial generation, she falls for the false narrative that she is incapacitated by circumstances out of her control. We want to connect with younger readers through the adventure and the world we create, but also with more sophisticated readers through our satire and comedy."
The Matsuya brothers continue to share the world of MIDNIGHT MASSACRE with readers by saying: "If you’ve ever been stuck at a dead end job (which I’m sure all of us have had at some point), you feel like something is wrong; that the system isn’t working for you. How is your boss the dumbest person alive? How are the least qualified people tasked with the most amount of responsibility? Have you felt like you were meant to do something bigger?"
They add, on a more personal note: "We have chosen to pursue creative endeavors, but following the recession we both took on jobs that put us in the stasis we describe (myself in a white-collar workplace; my brother in the very same theme park position that Amy has). We’ve watched so many of our generation struggle to find work and acquiesce to the first open position, only to fall into a routine and see their dreams stunted by our economic reality.
"We believe everyone who’s been in a job to “pay the bills” will feel an affinity with the struggles that Amy undergoes and take away the same message that she does: you aren’t just a cog. Be courageous. Follow your passion and fight for it. Don’t lose your sense of self and don’t let the system change you, change the system."
So, join jaded games employee and part-time rebel Amy Nicholson as she tries to save everyone from the nightmare that is the “Midnight Massacre” Halloween event at Calico Adventure Park. The complete story of MIDNIGHT MASSACRE will be on comiXology this month! Issues #1-2 release on 10/16 and issues #3-4 release on 10/30. And watch out next year for the physical trade collection!
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