Popverse's top stories of the day

• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Watch: Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]
• Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]

July is a month known for those beautiful long, glorious summer days, filled with light, warmth, and all manner of good things… which, if you think about it, makes it the ideal month for Boom! Studios to launch a new anthology comic showcasing the best in modern horror. It even has the perfect title for a July launch: Hello Darkness.

The $5.99 series will feature a shockingly good line-up of creative talent, with names mentioned by the publisher so far including Preacher co-creator Garth Ennis, Becky Cloonan, James Tynion IV, Werther Dell'Edera, Brian Azzarello, Vanesa R. Del Rey, John Arcudi, Ryan Sook, Cullen Bunn, Sas Milledge, Sarah Gailey, Liana Kangas, Marguerite Bennett, Michael Conrad, Martín Morazzo, Andy Lanning, Trevor Hairsine, Steve Orlando, Genevieve Valentine, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Letizia Cadonici, Sarah Anderson, Francesco Francavilla, and the man behind Goosebumps himself, R.L. Stine. The first four names on that list will be contributing serials that will run through the first months of the title, with Ennis and Cloonan collaborating on The War, which will appear in the first seven issues of the series, and Tynion and Werther Dell’Edera offering up a six-issue storyline tying into the acclaimed Something Is Killing the Children.

“My whole career started writing comic shorts, so it’s very exciting to bring it all around full circle and tell a SIKTC story in that format,” Tynion said in a statement about the new title. “The story Werther and I are going to be telling here is one that’s been in the back of my mind for almost five years, and I’m thrilled we finally have the perfect platform to bring that story to readers.”

Related: DC is hosting a murder mystery horror comic for the end of the world that will make Fallout jealous

Stine enthused, “This brings me back to Tales from the Crypt and the other horror comics I devoured as a kid. I’m so excited to be part of this anthology series designed to make the world a scarier place!”

Each issue of the series will have a primary cover by Paolo Rivera and a variant cover from Jenny Frison, with additional guest variants from a different artist each month — in the gallery below, you can see Rivera, Frison, and Peach Momoko’s covers for the series first issue.

Hello Darkness #1 will be released digitally and in comic book stores July 24.

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.