Next Wednesday September 7 AHOY Comics will publish HIGHBALL #1, the first issue of their latest hilarious series about a space pilot who’s the best shot in the galaxy—except he can only hit the target when he’s dead drunk. By writer Stuart Moore (Captain Ginger), artist Fred Harper (Snelson: Comedy is Dying), colorist Lee Loughridge, and letterer Rob Steen, HIGHBALL’s first issue will feature a cover by co-creator Fred Harper and a variant cover by David Rubin (Cosmic Detective).
Meet Highball, ace pilot of the Earth Space Corp. He’s the best shot in the galaxy, except for one big problem: he can only hit the target when he’s dead drunk.
This is HIGHBALL, AHOY Comics’ latest hilarious series about a sozzled space pilot attempting to save the galaxy one pint at a time, by writer Stuart Moore (Captain Ginger), Fred Harper (Snelson: Comedy is Dying), colorist Lee Loughridge, and letterer Rob Steen! The first issue of the absurd galactic series hits stores this fall with a main cover by Harper and a variant cover by David Rubin (Cosmic Detective).
“I was out having a few beers with an AHOY Comics colleague when a funny thing happened,” said Moore. “The more my friend had to drink, the better he got at throwing darts. It was uncanny! And at that booze-soaked moment, the idea for HIGHBALL was born.”
Moore and Harper recently collaborated on the critically acclaimed one-shot THE WRONG EARTH: PURPLE for AHOY Comics. HIGHBALL marks the first time the two creators have worked together on a creator-owned series.
In the far future, Earth’s finest pilot, call-sign HIGHBALL, finds himself caught between two alien races: the arrogant, cerebral Mentok and the fierce, birdlike Q’k’q’rr’kkk. In his one-man Byter ship, Highball must defuse an alien bomb and survive against a vicious enemy. But Highball has a deadly weakness: He can only hit the target when he’s stone drunk. In his quest to save the galaxy, Highball stumbles headfirst into obstacles such as nefarious space enemies, fellow pilots, the maddening bureaucracy of Space Corp—and, of course, his own shameful inadequacies!
“All work is political,” said Fred Harper. “That’s the line in issue 1 that really stood out to me because it’s so true right now. HIGHBALL is the story of a man who drinks to succeed. There’s some great gags about drinking in HIGHBALL, but in a lot of ways this is a story about the hangover of late stage capitalism.”
“It’s not often that you get a funny, exciting space opera that’s also a cry for help,” said AHOY Comics’ Editor-in-Chief Tom Peyer. “I’ve seen the crowd Stuart runs with, and if, as he says, they were out for just ‘a few’ beers the night HIGHBALL was conceived, that would be the wildest sci-fi concept yet!”
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Praise for HIGHBALL
“If we took the current sh*tshow that is humanity out into space this very minute, it would be no surprise that our hero would be Stuart Moore and Fred Harper’s HIGHBALL. A little bit Futurama, and a little bit Red Dwarf, and a whole lotta space booze.”
—Darick Robertson, co-creator of THE BOYS and TRANSMETROPOLITAN, artist of BATMAN: FORTRESS
HIGHBALL will be published monthly by AHOY Comics and stumbling into a store near you on September 7, 2022.
About AHOY Comics
AHOY Comics debuted in the fall of 2018 with the bold promise for readers to expect more from its line of comic book magazines, featuring comic book stories, poetry, prose fiction, and cartoons. The independent, Syracuse-based company is the brainchild of publisher Hart Seely, an award-winning reporter whose humor and satire has appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio. AHOY’s editor-in-chief Tom Peyer is committed to publishing comics with a (dark) sense of humor with titles like the religious satires SECOND COMING and HIGH HEAVEN, the superhero parodies THE WRONG EARTH and HASHTAG: DANGER, the sci-fi spoof CAPTAIN GINGER, the time travel tales PLANET OF THE NERDS and BRONZE AGE BOOGIE, and the humor/horror anthology series EDGAR ALLAN POE’S SNIFTER OF BLOOD.
About the Creators
Stuart Moore is a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor. His novels include the Marvel Crisis Protocol book Target: Kree (Aconyte Books) and three volumes of the New York Times bestselling middle-grade series The Zodiac Legacy (Disney Press), cowritten with Stan Lee. Recent comics include the original sci-fi series Captain Ginger, Bronze Age Boogie (both AHOY Comics), and EGOs (Image), as well as Deadpool the Duck (Marvel) and Batman: Nightwalker (DC Ink). He has also written prose and comics set in the universes of Stargate, The Transformers, the Valiant heroes, and Star Trek.
Fred Harper has illustrated stories for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Most memorable (at least to Fred) would be penciling for Animal Man at DC Vertigo. He started out with Savage Sword of Conan, Ghost Rider, and Doctor Strange at Marvel Comics. He went on to do illustrations for White Wolf and Magic the Gathering as he transitioned to magazine illustrations for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Week, SPORT, The Sporting News, Muscle and Fitness, Men’s Health, Muscular Development, and Sports Illustrated… to name a few. Fred currently resides in an apartment where he conducts experiments about the effects of copious amounts of espresso on an artist’s brain. Results have been inconclusive, but sometimes secrets take time for the beans to spill.
Anthony Andujar Jr.