An escaped demon must chase down his own kind as a bounty hunter in Living Hell, a new Dark Horse Comics series from Black Hammer: Reborn artist Caitlin Yarsky. Blending elements of Blade Runner 2049 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Living Hell is Yarsky’s first solo series as a writer and artist. Screen Rant is pleased to present an exclusive first look at the series.

Set to be released this fall, Living Hell centers around Jerome Jameel, a demon who has escaped from his prison in Hell to live on Earth. A loving husband and father, Jerome hides in plain sight as a bartender, determined to stay out of trouble. But that all changes when he kills one of Hell’s most vicious bounty hunters in self-defense.

Suddenly, Jerome finds himself inheriting the bounty hunter’s job, hunting fellow monsters as an infernal bailiff.

Living Hell Explores Very Human Themes (With Monsters)

Having lost his chance at a quiet life, Jerome is thrust into the world of demonic bounty hunters. In his new role, he must fight a variety of ancient monsters and deities, from corpse-eating ghosts of Japanese folklore known as Jikininki, to psychopomps like Baron Samedi, a spirit of the dead from Haitian Vodou. With every act of betrayal Jerome commits in pursuit of his targets, he loses a little bit more of his hard-earned humanity.

“Almost every mythology around the world has its own version of an underworld – a land of the dead, the embodiment of despair,” Yarsky explained. “Living Hell explores the lengths we’ll go to transcend generational trauma and the prisons of our past. It’s a story about family, the fantasy of a clean slate, and, of course, cool monsters.”

Caitlin Yarsky’s Strengths are on Full Display in Living Hell

As a series that blends fantasy and supernatural elements with genre-subverting action, Living Hell is a perfect showcase for Yarsky’s talents. Her first comic series was Coyotes with writer Sean Lewis from Image Comics. Described as “Underworld meets Sicario,” Coyotes centers around a detective and a mysterious young girl battling werewolves that are hunting women at the border. Lewis and Yarsky later teamed up for Bliss, a story of a man who becomes a hitman for three gods.

Yarsky has also worked on DC Comics books like the recent Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 with writer Leah Williams, Wonder Woman: Olympus Rebirth with writers Michael Conrad and Becky Cloonan, as well as Catwoman #47 with writer Tini Howard. She wrote and drew the story “Sisters of Angelus” for the 2020 Buffy the Vampire Slayer anthology, Every Generation. She served as the main artist on Black Hammer: Reborn, the follow-up to the award-winning Black Hammer series created by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston.

“From the moment she started drawing Black Hammer, I knew Caitlin Yarsky was a special artist and talent,” Lemire said. “And with her solo debut, Living Hell, she fully arrives as a force to be reckoned with in comics!”

With an intriguing premise and plenty of material to draw on, Caitlin Yarsky’s infernal dark fantasy Living Hell is a series to look out for when it is released by Dark Horse Comics later this year.