Dave Maass, Patrick Lay, & Ezra Rose

Author of
Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis
(Berger Books/Dark Horse Comics, 2023)

Dave Maass is a writer, journalist, advocate, and educator who manages to keep one foot planted in hard-hitting investigative reporting and the other foot dangling in pop culture. He is Director of Investigation at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he researches the intersection between technology and the justice system. He is also a Reynolds Scholar in Residence at the University of Nevada, Reno Reynolds School of Journalism, where he leads the award-winning Atlas of Surveillance project. Dave cut his teeth as reporter for alternative newsweeklies across the American Southwest, covering everything from the 2008 Democratic National Convention to Texas Death Row. Meanwhile, he has also covered San Diego Comic-Con since 2010 for publications such as Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Vice, and SyFyWire. He earned a Bachelors of Communication from Temple University Japan and a M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester. Dave is the writer of Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis.

Patrick Lay is a cartoonist, illustrator, educator, and podcaster from Northwest Ohio. His comics are teen and all-ages stories about becoming ourselves, what we owe each other, and the ups and downs of wild worlds. He earned a B.S.F.A in Oil Painting from Valparaiso University and an MFA in Comics from the California College of the Arts. He has been self-publishing since 2014, releasing 10 titles and contributing to the Vagabond comic anthologies. He also teaches comic workshops for ages K-18 and his podcast, Pop!Whiz!Bang!, co-hosted with Meggie Ramm, focused on comics theory and process. Patrick currently works as a graphic designer and as an adjunct professor at the Columbus College of Art and Design, teaching Comics and Narrative Illustration. He has also been a news director, general manager, music director, bartender, and construction worker. Patrick is the illustrator of Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis.

Ezra Rose is an illustrator, zinester and multi-disciplinary creator living on a small farm in Western Massachusetts with queer chosen family. Their art explores monsters, magic, queer/trans identity and Jewish culture, celebrating the marginal and connecting to the symbols and stories of both past and present. Ezra's work has appeared in tabletop games, comics anthologies, and other small/indie press. Their illustrations and comic collaborations have been published by Cambridge University Press, PM Press, AK Press, Buried Without Ceremony, Glowing Roots Press and Sarah Rowan Games, Power and Magic Press and Other Side Press. Ezra holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a M.Ed. from Lesley University. They are the character designer of Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis.

Represented by Madison Smartt Bell

Books by Dave, Patrick, and Ezra

Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis (Dark Horse Comics, 2024)
Top 10 Comics and Graphic Novels of 2024—New York Public Library

Mixing dystopian sci-fi, mythic fantasy, and zombie horror, Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, is a graphic novel based on a suppressed opera written in 1943 by Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, two prisoners at the Terezín concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The authors did not live to see their masterpiece performed.

Set in an alternative universe where Atlantis never sank but instead became a technologically advanced tyranny, the power-mad buffoonish Emperor declares all-out war—everyone against everyone. Death goes on a labor strike, creating a hellscape where everyone fights, but no one dies. Can the spirit of Life stop this terror with the power of love?

Includes designs from the original opera, historical essays, photographs, and more.

Praise:

"This is beautiful and strange, both for what it is and what it isn't. As a story it's fascinating and excellently told, as an artifact it's heartbreaking and affecting. More than a footnote in Holocaust literature or a lost libretto given visual shape, it's a reminder of what art is for, and how it saves and shapes us when everything else is gone.”—Neil Gaiman

“Maass’s playful script, with its pitch-black humor and fiendish turns of phrase, honors the original opera... This parable captures the defiant spirit of artists.”—Publishers Weekly