Thanksgiving Is a Hilarious But Disturbingly Relevant Horror Comic

Halloween and Christmas may be the two holidays most commonly associated with horror, but let’s not count out Thanksgiving. That combination worked out well enough in Eli Roth’s Grindhouse spinoff Thanksgiving, and now it’s the basis for a new satirical horror comic from AHOY Comics.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of Thanksgiving #1. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

Appropriately, Thanksgiving #1 is written by Mark Russell, one of the masters of modern comic book satire thanks to books like The Flintstones and Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. The issue is illustrated by Mauricet (Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror, Howl).

Here’s AHOY’s official summary of Thanksgiving #1:

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.

“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. “It 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.”

“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.”

Thanksgiving #1 will be released on October 22, 2025.

In other comic book news, Cult of the Lamb is returning to comics for the new Schism Special, and Marvel introduced David Colton, the forgotten post-9/11 Captain America.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.