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Revealed at the Rocketship Entertainment panel at New York Comic Con on Sunday was the news that they are to revive the Lights Out horror radio programme that started in the early 1930s starring the likes of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Veronica Lake. Rocketship, in partnership with Retro Entertainment, will initially release the new series along with select remastered editions of the original program on vinyl.
The drama will be accompanied by a Lights Out graphic novel anthology. The talent announced at the panel included prominent comic book creators Dean Haspiel, Justin Jordan, John Bivens, Kevin Grevioux, Leeanne M. Krecic, Warren Ellis, Kody Chamberlain, Madeleine Rosca, Tom Akel, and Ben Templesmith. The release is slated for sometime in 2023.
This will be the first new publication of comic book works by Warren Ellis in two years. In June 2020, the website SoManyOfUs.com collected and collated dozens of accusations of grooming young women by the comic book writer Warren Ellis over the past two decades. Further coverage saw them record, even more, over a hundred. In the wake of this news, and despite the site stating they did not want Warren to be “cancelled” but to learn, a number of projects (but not all) dropped Ellis as a contributor, or he pulled out. In February 2022, Warren Ellis relaunched his Orbital Operations newsletter, from a new provider, Button Down in which he linked to the So Many Of Us update and website. It is not known how things have progressed since, but there have been no visible updates since then.
Previously Warren Ellis stated that he was coming back to comic books in some degree in 2023. as well as audio drama. Whether either of these teased projects is a part of Lights Out, or something different, is not yet known, but I expect we’ll find out soon.
Rocketship publisher Tom Akel told me “We have been following statements and updates by both SMOU and Warren. Based on those, which state that Warren has been engaged with the mediator since August of 2021, that SMOU has reiterated that there is no will to “cancel” him, and that the majority of SMOU have found peace and have moved forward, we will be publishing a short story by Warren Ellis in next year’s LIGHTS OUT anthology.” So Many Of Us representatives did not reply to messages sent last night.
Lights Out is an early American radio programme devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, created by Wyllis Cooper and then taken over by Arch Oboler, running between 1934 and 1947, before transferring to television for a short spell.
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