At a crossroads, comedian Dave Hill looked back to his high school days and created the fake black metal band Witch Taint. And the band may not be real, but the impact of the viral hoax has led to everything from an interview with Malcolm Gladwell, to the near destruction of a small town, to now, a comic book from Oni Press. That comic? Dark Regards #1, which tells the (mostly) true story of how Witch Taint came to be.
In the book, Hill documents his time from his scuttled ambitions as a death metal musician in high school to a somewhat more successful time as a stand-up comedian in New York. But it was a sudden dumping that led him to rediscover black metal, and then from there it was a short leap to antagonizing the entire black metal community.
Hill is a comedian known for songs and earnest, off-kilter goofiness, and that’s exactly what you get from this book. While it starts with Hill in complete Witch Taint makeup getting interviewed by Malcolm Gladwell, it very quickly establishes that the comic version of this story is aiming more for MAD Magazine than Time. That includes everything from extended jokes about bologna empanadas to frequent anachronisms, to the way Hill has a literal dream about Witch Taint, and then just goes ahead and does it. At least in the first issue, there’s not a lot of analysis of why Hill did this, or what the impact is… It’s all setups for the spiraling insanity of the situation (which did, indeed, happen in real life).
In this, Hill has a game partner in Topilin, who leans into the MAD of it all with cartoonish designs for the characters that perfectly match the tone of the book. Particularly in the latter half of the issue, the designs for the various black metal artists — real ones — who are none too pleased with Hill’s antics are a delight. Sure, Hill is the main character here, but there’s enough life in them that a spinoff series set in Scandinavia could be warranted.
Will you find out more about black metal by reading this book, with a unique look inside the culture? No. Will you discover more about the loss and nostalgia that drives a man to amp up tensions with an entire subculture? Also, not really, no. But will you laugh at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation? Absolutely yes. And to that I say: hail Satan.
Dark Regards #1 hits stores on May 14, 2025 from Oni Press.
Dark Regards #1 Rating:
Dark Regards #1 Official Synopsis:
SOMETIMES YOU BREAK THE INTERNET—AND SOMETIMES THE INTERNET BREAKS YOU! AT LAST—THE TRUE STORY OF THE VIRAL HOAX SO INSANE IT COULD ONLY BE TOLD AS A COMIC BOOK!
From the honestly pretty impressive mind of multi-hyphenate writer-comedian-actor-musician Dave Hill (Tasteful Nudes) and breakout artist Artyom Topilin (I Hate This Place) comes the SHOCKINGLY TRUE, TERRIFYINGLY HILARIOUS, AND ONLY MODESTLY EXAGGERATED tale of how one stand-up comedian forged a secret online identity as America’s first true black metal icon . . . and accidentally started an international incident that almost wiped Gary, Indiana, off the map!
Two decades ago, Dave Hill and his first band set out to rock their high school auditorium in a fury of heavy metal hellfire. They failed miserably. Years later, Dave has made a new life for himself as a rising star in the New York comedy scene—a career where getting laughed at on stage is the entire point and not just a tragic consequence. But when Dave’s metal ambitions are reawakened by the über self-serious “satanic” genre of Norwegian black metal, Dave creates a ridiculously hyperbolic alter ego and a band to match that, together, reignite the spark of his forgotten rock ’n’ roll fantasy.
But when Dave’s internet-fueled rumors of Witch Taint—a metal band “so extreme that you must remove all sharp objects from the immediate area” when their music is played—spreads all the way to Europe, his story will spiral dangerously out of control as Norway’s most extreme black metal butchers come to reap their revenge . . . and put everything and everyone Dave holds dear in the crosshairs (of their axes, which, truth be told, don’t actually have crosshairs, but, hey, it’s a metaphor).
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