The fringes of San Diego Comic Con announcements are hitting us, which means we have some excellent headliners this week. But there’s a lot more than that, so let’s look at the things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics in another edition of Comics Disassembled.

Daniel Warren Johnson, Practicing Chainkata

It’s hard to call something a magnum opus when seemingly everything a person does is their new magnum opus, but Chainkata? That might be Daniel Warren Johnson’s actual magnum opus.

As the cartoonist put it on Instagram, this puppy is nine years in the making, as Johnson put his blood, sweat, tears, and all his passions into this new series over at Image Comics. What’s it about? The simplest answer is what he says on Instagram, which is, “Chicks. With Chainsaws. In Space.” (except all caps), but a more robust one — with an explanation about how big of a deal this is for Johnson — can be found in the press release from Image Comics. Here’s what it says.

“Luma is a chainsaw-wielding warrior queen, seeking out an unknown power in the vastness of space. All she wants is to find peace, but violence and terror follow her through every black hole. The story will blend the epic, high-stakes sci-fi of Beta Ray Bill and Space-Mullet and with the character-building depth of Extremity and Do A Powerbomb. It is the culmination, and maximization, of Johnson’s craft and the perfect read for fans of action-packed comics with art that leaps from the page.”

Yeah, that sounds rad. I’ve known about this one for a while, and I’ve seen a fair few pages from Chainkata, each of which finds Johnson going to the absolute max. Literally. These pages are massive. He isn’t messing around, and he’s doing this story his own way. I love that this is his attempt at “Bringing Sci-Fi Back,” as he put it in the trailer for the series. I’m pumped to see it in printed form, because it’s going to straight up rule — as everything DWJ does.

Issue #1 hits in November, and I highly recommend pre-ordering so you don’t miss it. I suspect this is going to be a hot one.

Tradd Moore, Going Big

While we know much less about this project than Johnson’s one, Touch Me Someplace Nowhere is no less exciting and maybe even more idiosyncratic. It’s the first solo creator-owned project for Tradd Moore, as the cartoonist is taking his talents to Oni Press for this new series that’s arriving in 2027. While details are sketchy, as it’s still quite a ways away and Oni’s saving some bullets for San Diego Comic Con, here’s what the announcement at Boing Boing said:

“(This series) follows ‘a cascading cast of outsiders through their turbulent, violent, and libidinous misadventures in an alternate New York City,’ where street gangs battle for territory and literal wild animals roam the streets. At the center of it all is Kelly Muir, the estranged child of a powerful crime family, embarking on what sounds like a spectacularly bad (and spectacularly entertaining) night out in gangland Brooklyn.'”

That sounds amazing, and I love that it feels very much like Moore merging his genre loves with his emotional core. If you’ve read any of his solo work, you know he digs into some raw and wild feelings, and Touch Me Someplace Nowhere very much appears to be doing that. And I’m not just saying that. The teaser image is almost doing exactly that with the vibe of Moore’s art and its tagline of “Kelly can’t decide if she’s rather fight, f***, or die. Tonight she’ll try all three,” which sounds like your 20s in a nutshell (maybe with a bit less of the “die” part, at least).

As much as I love Moore’s art, the thing I appreciate about this is how different it feels. While there are genre trappings to it, it feels very much like his own take on the live-wire energy that only real life and big emotions can have to them. My bet is this will be a beautiful merging of all that, and I can’t wait to see what he cooks up in this new series when it hits next year.

Also: Shouts to Oni on pulling this one! Getting a new series from Moore feels like a big win for them, and another in a series of wins they’ve had the past couple years.