Athanasia - Paperback

by Daniel Kraus (Author), Dani (Illustrator), Brad Simpson (Colorist)

Watchmen meets Unbreakable in the darkly disturbing supernatural tale, ATHANASIA, where the heroic dead bleed power into the ground ... only to be unearthed by a down-on-her-luck young woman to unforeseeable consequences.

Some secrets are best left buried.

Forrest Molson is going nowhere. One year out of high school -- and one year into sobriety -- she's working with her father as assistant groundskeeper at Athanasia Cemetery, the final resting place of fallen members of the Dynamic Guild, Venture City's resident superheroes. At her lowest point, Forrest discovers Athanasia's darkest secret. At night, the cemetery soil bleeds a substance created from the spectacular substances that ooze from rotting superheroes. This ooze becomes Forrest's new drug -- and she's intent on using her unpredictable new powers to be judge, jury, and executioner of Venture City's evil citizens. But as she loses her mind to her new addiction, she inches closer to becoming the most evil of all. ATHANASIA is a superhero story seen through the darkest lens.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus (The Autumnal, Angel Down, Whalefall, The Shape of Water) and rising star artist Dani!

**2025 Bram Stoker Award Finalist: Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel**

"...a provactive and unsettling superhero horror story." - Publishers Weekly

"Man, this is some high-calibre, nuanced, comic-booking -- really strong storytelling." - Stephen Graham Jones (New York Times bestselling author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and the Indian Lake trilogy)

"...gritty..." - Booklist

"...horror fans will find this smart and unpredictable." - Publishers Weekly

For fans of the graphic novels Black Hammer (Jeff LeMire/Dean Ormston), Watchmen (Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons), The Crow (James O'Barr +Film), Kingdom Come (Mark Waid/Alex Ross), Batman: The Killing Joke (Alan Moore/Brian Bolland), The Boys (Garth Ennis/Darick Roberson), The Authority (Warren Ellis/Bryan Hitch); the films Darkman, Chronicle, and Unbreakable and the novels Alter Ego (Alex Segura), Secret Identity (Alex Segura), V.E. Schwab's Villains series (Vicious and Vengeful), and Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series.

Author Biography

Kraus brings the rigor of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet. - The New York Times

DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His
latest novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book
Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best
Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more. 20th
Century Fox will release the film adaptation, cowritten by Kraus, in 2026.

With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea
the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored
Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote
The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero.
Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment
Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe
Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), has appeared multiple
times as Library Guild selections, and more.

Kraus's work has been translated into over 20 languages. Visit him at danielkraus.com.

Dani was born in Athens, Greece in 1992 and studied sculpting in Athens School of Fine Arts. She has worked with 2000AD, IDW, VAULT Comics, Legion M, BOOM! Studios, VERTIGO, Black Crown, DC Comics, Titan, AWA and is the artist behind DC's "Arkham City: The Order of The World" and the creator owned series "COFFIN BOUND" from Image Comics, both written by Dan Watters and "The Low, Low Woods" written by Carmen Maria Machado for Hill House Comics. She is also the creator of "Tales from the Strips", a self-published series that won the Reader's Choice Award at the Greek Comics Awards 2015.