In Episode 620, Patrick Lay from Dark Horse’s upcoming Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis graphic novel along with a holiday tradition! Patrick and I talk about this timely and timeless original graphic novel from him as artist and journalist Dave Maas, due in bookstores on January 23 and in comics shops on January 24. It’s described this way: “From 1941 to 1945, the Nazis operated a concentration camp called Terezín (or Theresienstadt) 30 miles outside Prague in what is modern-day Czech Republic. The former fortress town was home to many Jewish artists, writers, musicians, dramatists, actors, and other intellectuals. More than 140,000 people passed through Terezín during the war, and while only a few thousand outlived the Nazi regime, a vast amount of their writings, compositions and artworks survived to tell their stories. This graphic novel is based on one of these works, Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann’s opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, which Kien and Ullmann did not live to see performed. Through satire and fantasy, the narrative presents many lessons for modern society on war and technology, but its greatest lesson is that none of us must ever forget that beauty and humor can be found even in the face of doom.” We discuss how this book came to be, what else Patrick is working on, and the importance of this story for today’s world. Then everything wraps up with my annual holiday tradition, playing the audio from ‘Twas the Dark Knight Before Christmas! You can see the video at this link! Don’t miss next week’s episode as we wrap up 2023 with another terrific conversation with another great comics professional! Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by becoming a Major Spoilers Patreon member. It will help ensure Wayne's Comics Podcast continues far into the future!

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