Rage is a road trip while the world goes to hell from Jimmy Palmiotti and Scott Hampton

Rage
(Image credit: Scott Hampton (Paperfilms))

Longtime Harley Quinn co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti is reuniting with his GI Zombie artistic partner Scott Hampton on an original graphic novel called Rage. In this OGN, a father named Braden goes on a cross-country journey to find his daughter after a catastrophic event rocks the world and calls into question everyone's safety. Consider Rage a family story set in the early moments of a post-apocalyptic scenario.

(Image credit: Scott Hampton (Paperfilms))

"Rage is a full-throttle, white knuckle thriller about a man with secrets in his past, who will do absolutely whatever it takes to save his daughter," Palmiotti says in the book's announcement. "It’s a story all about survival, which in this case means learning to live with what you’ve done - and what you’ve failed to do."

Rage begins with Braden waking up in an NYC holding cell, learning while he slept the world was burning in some sort of apocalyptic event. After years of being a bad father, the events lead him to muster up all of scraps of true fatherhood left in him to drive cross-country to the west coast to save his daughter, Friday.

"Thrown into chaos, the world struggles to reset itself while coping with the changes, forcing everyone into a traumatic fury for self-preservation. Braden is forced to use all his resources and skills, while struggling with his unfortunate past, to find his daughter," Palmiotti continues. "Faced with several challenges, individuals and circumstances, will Branden survive to be reunited with his daughter? Find out in this action-packed thriller of survival and attempted redemption."

(Image credit: Bill Sienkiewicz (Paperfilms))

Rage is a 68-page fully-painted square-bound OGN lettered by John J. Hill, with a decidedly adult tenor due to nudity and violence.

"Scott Hampton’s done an absolutely stunning job with the art and Amanda Conner and Bill Sienkiewicz have done jaw-dropping variant covers," says Palmiotti. "Like most PaperFilms’ books, Rage is a graphic novel with sex and violence and is for adults. We make comics for adults, by adults."

Paperfilms is Palmiotti and Conner's own publishing company, launched to self-publish their original work and also handle media rights. Rage is the 16th crowdfunding campaign they've undertaken, all of which have been successful.

Paperfilms returns to Kickstarter comics as the platform is experiencing record growth in terms of funding, as well as an increase in the percentage of comics successfully funded.

You can back Rage and pre-order the OGN directly on Kickstarter now through August 17.

Here's a ranked list of the most successful Kickstarter comics projects to date.

Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)