Real

How far would you go to truly understand the mistakes you’ve made, and how much danger would you put yourself in to do so? That’s one of the central themes of Steve Orlando, Garry Brown, Lee Loughridge and Thomas Mauer’s Crude, a new debut from Image Comics partner studio Skybound. Described by Orlando as somewhat of a spiritual sequel to his Jamaican queer revenge story Virgil, Crude is about a young Russian man searching for a greater purpose in life no matter the cost — until it isn’t, and the book takes a sharp turn into an entirely different kind of revenge story. Orlando himself spent a decade living in Russia and his experience with the culture shines through, especially with the initial lead character of Kiril, a young bisexual man living in a small town with even smaller ideas of what kind of future men like him have in the world. RELATED: Steve Orlando Joins Skybound With Oil Drama Crude Choosing to risk everything by moving to the notoriously dangerous mining town of Black