Abbott and Costello Return to Comics in “Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters” (Crowdfunding Spotlight)
Legendary comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are back in comics for the first time in more than 50 years.
Monstrous, the independent publisher owned and operated by Bram Stoker Award winner James Aquilone, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters, a three-issue miniseries that drops the duo into the kind of monster-filled mayhem akin to films like 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
This time around, though, Bud and Lou are meeting all-new monsters that they never got to face on screen.
The first issue, Abbott and Costello Meet the Night Stalker, features interior art by Dave Acosta. The story features our titular heroes in the Army during World War II and teams them up with reporter Carl Kolchak (from Monstrous’ own award-winning comic Kolchak: The Night Stalker for a run-in with the vampire Janos Skorzeny.
In the second issue, Abbott and Costello Meet the Morlocks, the pair comes face to face with the underground creatures from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. George Quadros handles the interior art.
The third issue, Abbott and Costello Meet Cthulhu, sends the two up against H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous, yet hard to pronounce creation. Juan Samu provides the interior art.
All three issues also includes some Abbott and Costello comic strips written by Aquilone and illustrated by Zac Atkinson.
The series is officially licensed with the support of both the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello estates. “Abbott and Costello were my introduction to horror as well as comedy,” Aquilone said in the campaign announcement. “They’ve been a huge influence on my work and it’s unreal to be bringing my heroes back to comics in a genre that is near and dear to me, horror-comedy, which might not exist without Abbott and Costello.”
Reward tiers start with single print issues at $15 each, with multiple covers to choose from and an optional signature from Aquilone. A digital bundle collecting all three issues in PDF goes for $25, while the print set of all three Cover A editions (digital PDFs included) is $40.
The campaign is loaded with extra tchotchkes and licensed merchandise as well, including:
- Additional copies of each issue
- A signed and numbered black-and-white limited edition of issue #1
- Remarque editions with an original sketch covers
- The original cover artwork
- Four different T-shirt designs
- An enamel pin
- A collectors coin
- A sticker sheet
- Trading card sets (that include a random autograph card)
- A collectors box
Rewards are currently estimated for delivery in August 2027.
The Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters campaign is live now on Kickstarter. You can check out some sample artwork below, or visit the full Kickstarter page here.
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