Mark Russell, Mauricet and AHOY Comics Invite You to THANKSGIVING,
An Oversized 48-Page Horror-Comedy One-Shot
About A Holiday Meal Gone Horribly Wrong
Review:
I saved reading THANKSGIVING until the week of the actual holiday (here in the US). It felt appropriate. Many people who celebrate this holiday choose to ignore the real history and the real present. This comic isn’t about the Mayflower, Puritans, or the indigenous people of Massachusetts Bay Colony. This story, however, is about murder. Lots of murders, in fact.
First of all, this family, the Grandts, are messed up. Grandma keeps her racism targeted specifically at Mexicans. I’m not sure why. It’s probably safe to assume she watches a certain brand of news. Grandpa is insisting on not giving a shit about anything until he dies; all he wants is food and television. Don’t ask him his opinion on anything. Terry is a delusional man in the middle of a divorce and he’s not handling it well. He’s an adult grandchild and the brother of narrator, Jo. Their mother and Uncle Stan are the other adults around the table.
What makes this family different? Uncle Stan is a celebrity. He’s a game show host who returns to this little hamlet for Thanksgiving annually. It’s the only time he comes home. He thinks little of other people. He considers all of his viewers and fans imbeciles not worthy of his time. As a celebrity, he feels like a god. Uncle Stan filled in as a father figure for Jo and Terry after their father left mysteriously, never to be heard from again.
They have an unusual tradition. Instead of giving thanks, they have a competition of confessions. It reminded me of the Festivus “airing of grievances” from Seinfeld.
The Grandts, like all the other families of this small town, have more to worry about than drinking too much and behaving badly. There’s a serial killer who usually comes out of dormancy around this time of year. This murderer, dubbed The Turkeyneck Killer because their first victim was slashed at the throat, leaves evidence at a location where minorities live. This serial killer has also cut off fingers on victims which perplexes the local police about multiple modi operandi.
Without giving any more away, I’ll say that the Grandt family members have confessions aplenty. On a different note, page 6 is a gutting realization about another sad fact in American history and present day regarding Thanksgiving turkeys which is shown on a blood red page.
More about artist Mauricet: The comic clearly delineates between the present moment family dinner and other events such as Uncle Stan taking Jo and Terry on vacation or his time on the set of his TV show. The background of present day snowy scenes is a dark, cool grey with the characters in warm rosy skin tones. There’s no need for an elaborately decorated dining room. Simple color breaks in shades of orange and peach do the job. Close up of Uncle Stan’s sweet face shows his eyes change color allowing a barely perceptible shift in mood.
Mark Russell presents the family and in essence the readers a sordid game of Would You Rather. In this instance it’s whether to have something that would help you in life (money, surgery, a vacation, etc.) or to have someone of your choosing killed. Besides the morality behind the weight of these choices, whatever the majority of the family wants is accepted as the final choice.
If you watched all of The Good Place with Kristen Bell and William Jackson Harper this type of choice for fictional characters is familiar to you. Also, it’s been something that Batman villains have done since day one.
Rating: 5 stars
Press Release:
Thanksgiving: a day for American families, when the alienated, the estranged, and the politically antagonistic come together to perform unity—until the strain inevitably tears them apart. But for one family, the addition of a cruel and deadly secret—involving the continuing rampage of the mysterious Turkeyneck Killer—solidly binds them together in the saddest, most shameful way.
This fall, pull up a chair at your own risk at THANKSGIVING, a gory and timely new horror-comedy one-shot from writer Mark Russell (X-Factor, Second Coming), artist Mauricet (Howl), letterer Rob Steen and publisher AHOY Comics. The oversized 48-page issue about a family dinner gone horribly wrong will feature three grisly covers by Mauricet—a main cover, a “Blood for Dinner” variant, and a “Turkey Death” variant—and land in stores on October 22, 2025… just in time to ruin your holiday.
“Thanksgiving is a black comedy using the most American of holidays as a metaphor for what our nation is in danger of becoming,” said writer Mark Russell. “t tells the story of a nuclear family with many of the same divisions you find within our nation and how deep the rifts between people become while we aren’t paying attention. About how a monster lurks in plain sight, but we choose not to see it.”
“Welcome to the Grandts family’s Thanksgiving dinner,” said artist Mauricet. “Please take a seat at the table. We are about to start serving the meal. For the appetizer, you will have a bit of dysfunctional America wrapped in cynical humor. For the main course, we offer you one of the most original serial killers the country has known. Still hungry? Expect a rather surprising dessert…”
“Mark got mad about something big and wrote this story—I think to help process it,” said AHOY Comics Editor-in-Chief Tom Peyer. “I think it’ll help us all process it. Whenever he gets mad, I hope he brings it to AHOY. Mauricet, meanwhile, is doing the best work of his career, but then he always seems to be.”
The darkly funny one-shot THANKSGIVING #1 will land in comic shops on October 22, 2025.
For more updates on AHOY Comics, visit them on X, Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram.
- THANKSGIVING #1 (one-shot – 48 pages)
- (W) Mark Russell (A) Mauricet
- Cover A: Mauricet $7.99
- Cover B: Mauricet – “Blood for Dinner” variant $7.99 1:3 unlock
- Cover C: Mauricet – “Turkey Death” variant $7.99 1:5 unlock
An intense, timely one-shot from Mark Russell (X-Factor, SECOND COMING) and Mauricet (HOWL). Thanksgiving—a day when American families come together, until the strain inevitably tears them apart. But for one family, the cruel and deadly secret of the Turkeyneck Killer binds them together in the saddest, most shameful way possible.
About AHOY Comics
AHOY Comics debuted in the fall of 2018 with the bold promise for readers to expect more from its line of comic book magazines, featuring comic book stories, poetry, prose fiction, and cartoons. Brainchild of publisher Hart Seely, editor-in-chief Tom Peyer, CCO Frank Cammuso, and Ops guy Stuart Moore, the Syracuse-based indie publisher has made its reputation on witty satires, acclaimed creators, and commitment to bold and risk-taking storytelling — with critically acclaimed titles such as THE TOXIC AVENGER by Matt Bors and Fred Harper, SECOND COMING by Mark Russell and Richard Pace, BABS by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows, HOWL by Alisa Kwitney and Mauricet, THE WRONG EARTH by Tom Peyer and Jamal Igle, JUSTICE WARRIORS by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, the quirky monster anthology PROJECT: CRYPTID, and many more.
About the creators
Mark Russell is the author of not one, but two, books about the Bible: God Is Disappointed in You and Apocrypha Now. In addition, he is the writer behind various DC comic books such as Prez, The Flintstones, and Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. He lives in obscurity with his family in Portland, Oregon.
Mauricet is a Belgian comic book artist. He has been drawing since he could hold a pencil in his right hand. His career started 36 years ago in Belgium and France working for some of the big publishers in Europe. For the American market, he has worked on such titles as Tellos, The Crossovers, Harley Quinn, The Gang of Harleys, Dastardly & Muttley, Future Quest, Star Wars adventures, Swine and Creepshow. More recently he has been steadily collaborating with AHOY Comics drawing stories for Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror and Project: Cryptid as well as the miniseries G.I.L.T. and Howl, both co-created and written by Alisa Kwitney.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.