High Heaven: The Austerity Gospel

by Tom Peyer, Greg Scott (Illustrator), Richard Williams (Illustrator)

Overview

Collecting the acclaimed tale of chronic malcontent David Weathers, who dies and goes to Heaven—where everything is terrible, and everybody hates a complainer.

A savage satire by writer Tom Peyer (Hourman, Batman ’66) with art by Greg Scott (Black Hood, X-Files). Features the entire five-issue series plus a bonus illustrated script feature with commentary by Peyer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998044224
Publisher:	AHOY Comics
Publication date:	07/02/2019
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	965,744
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Tom Peyer - AHOY Comics' editor-in-chief's long, curly hair was declared "best in comics" by the influential social media account Comics In The Golden Age. He has written such comics as Penultiman, Hashtag: Danger, High Heaven, Legion of Super-Heroes, Hourman, and Marvel Team-Up. One of the original editors of DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, today he writes and edits AHOY comics from a house across from a cemetery in a leafy suburb of Syracuse, NY.

Greg Scott is a comic book artist who pencils and inks his own work. He has drawn such titles as X-Files, Black Hood, Steve McQueen, and Area 51. He broke into comics through espionage: learning the time of day Marvel editors went outside for a cigarette break, he passed them art samples and was quickly given an assignment.

Richard Williams' illustration work has appeared in many national magazines, most notably MAD, for whom he was the cover artist during the 1980s. He has also illustrated children’s books (The Legend of the Christmas Rose, Lewis and Clark: Explorers of the American West) and painted covers for many young adult books such as Encyclopedia Brown.

A partial list of his clients includes: IBM, NBC television, Hallmark Cards, Nabisco, Chesebrough-Pond, MAD, Esquire, Ms., Reader's Digest, TV Guide, Time, Family Circle, Parents, Field & Stream, Women’s Day, Atlantic Monthly, Guideposts, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Bantam books, Simon & Schuster, Holiday House, Dell, Doubleday, Scholastic Books, Harper Collins, Putnam, Clarion Books, MacMillan Press, Ballantine, Atheneum Books, David C. Cooke, EP Dutton, Recorded Books, Henry Holt, Aladdin Books, Canard Design, Abrams Art Books, National Park Service, Della Femina McNamee, Drambuie, Strathmore Paper, and the Library of Congress.

His paintings have been purchased by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Howard Stern and are in the collections of the Society of Illustrators and the Library of Congress.

Richard holds a master's degree in illustration from Syracuse University.

Editorial Reviews

04/01/2019

In this religious satire crossed with gritty dark fantasy, whiny sad sack David is killed by a falling piano and winds up in heaven, where he’s massively disappointed by the accommodations. The food is terrible, he shares a grimy dorm room with a series of roommates, and an angry, sunglasses-wearing St. Peter curses him out whenever he complains. David soon learns that the elect are living it up in the considerably more posh (but still limited to unimaginative earthly pleasures) “High Heaven,” but trying to score an upgrade means taking on the corrupt bureaucracy of the afterlife. The grimly photorealistic art, with characters’ faces forever frozen in exaggerated angry expressions, is awkwardly matched to the script. Alternately a black comedy, a caustic critique of Christianity, a punch-em-up action fantasy, and an attempt to engage seriously with complex issues like mortality and class divisions, the work never finds its tone. The violence is sometimes wacky, sometimes serious and gruesome; the afterlife is sometimes a comic send-up of Earth, other times a complex fantasy world with an elaborate history and weird sci-fi elements. Full of hard-to-like characters and concepts that don’t quite gel, this comic throws out multitudes of big ideas but runs into as many rough edges. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Subversively, wicked fun.

Comic Mix

A very biting take on the concept of eternal happiness.

Omni Comics

Hilarious dark satire.... The art by Greg Scott is wonderfully detailed and expressive.

Impulse Gamer

Thoughtful and clever.

Portland Oregonian