Broken Frontier

Oni Press is pleased to announce the November release of OFF ROAD, an original 136-page graphic novel by Sean Murphy (BATMAN/SCARECROW: YEAR ONE).  What do you get when you mix 3 guys, 1 brand new Jeep, and a whole day of trouble? Go OFF ROAD and find out!

Greg’s just been given a brand new yellow Jeep by his father, and his best friends Brad and Trent couldn’t be happier. Well, they would be happier if Trent hadn’t just gotten his heart broken, and if Brad hadn’t gotten in a fist fight with his father.  Those concerns slip away, however, when they decide to take the Jeep on an off-roading adventure. As they careen through the hills and rivers they feel manly! Powerful! That is, until they get the Jeep hopelessly stuck in a swamp.  The story then becomes a desperate struggle to free the Jeep and get out of this swamp that is filled with marauding rednecks, drunken parents, ex-girlfriends, mosquitoes, a looming forest fire, and a crazy mechanic named Joe.

“The story is loosely based on real events,” Murphy explained. “The back and forth banter that the characters use is exactly what we did on that day five years ago when we got my friend’s brand new yellow Jeep stuck in the mud the very day he bought it.  I told him that I would make it up to him by doing a comic about it someday. OFF ROAD is basically that: me atoning for my past sins.” 

As the three friends struggle to free their ride home, things go from bad to worse, and they find themselves with nothing to do but face their troubles. And everyone may grow up a little on this trip.  It is the classic conflict of man versus nature, but underneath that is the deeper theme of three guys maturing and trying to define what it is to be a man.

“Sean has a talent for making a situation simultaneously hilarious and poignant,” commented editor Randal Jarrell. “He’s captured what it’s like to be just out of high school, feeling completely paralyzed at the prospect of real life; with all the humor and hope that entails.”
Readers shouldn’t assume that everything in the book is real, however, as Murphy pushes the friends’ farther on their odyssey. Murphy explained, “I have no problem making something less true to life if it means making the story better.  It pisses my two friends off when I make them do something they wouldn't, but they'll just have to get over it because I'm making them famous.  Either that, or they'll end up suing me.”

Exploring themes of friendship, growth, and feeling stuck where you’re at, OFF ROAD joins an ever growing library of OniGNs, original graphic novels with compelling stories and themes by veteran publisher Oni Press.

OFF ROAD is a 136-page trade paperback, featuring black-and-white story and art. It ships to comic books stores in November and retails for $11.95 with an ISBN of 1-932664-30-0.