Kid Maroon: Christopher Cantwell, Victor Santos Launch Metafictional Mystery at Vault Comics

Kid Maroon "returns" in a double-sized first issue from Vault.

By Jamie Lovett - August 23, 2024 12:00 pm EDT

Prepare to embark on a metafictional mystery in Kid Maroon, a new Vault Comics series from writer Christopher Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire, Iron Man, Doctor Doom), artist Victor Santos (Polar, Violent Love), colorist Mattia Iacono (Kid Venom, The Dead Lucky), letterer Andworld Design (The Many Deaths of Laila Starr), and designer by Adam Cahoon (The Nasty). Presented as a revival of a forgotten comic strip of the 1940s created by a cartoonist called Pep Shepard, the series sees a small-town boy detective outgrowing his innocuous local mysteries and heading for the city, where crime is more common and more serious.

As presented by Vault in their press release, "the daily Kid Maroon comic strip focused on a hard-boiled boy detective who investigates horrendous crimes in his hometown of 'Crimeville'. The series quickly attracted significant controversy, as the stories drew on Shepard's nihilistic outlook, penchant for violence, and obsession with bathtub laudanum. The backlash against the series, coupled with the rising tides of the Comics Code, led to the strip's cancellation after just 216 episodes. This caused Shepard to become completely disaffected with the comic book medium, and he would go on to bury all his original art in what is believed to be a field in South Dakota, location unknown. Despite all of this, Kid Maroon became a tremendous cult hit that has inspired underground and independent comics ever since."

(Photo:
Kid Maroon #1 cover
- Victor Santos, Vault Comics)

In the press release, Cantwell says, "I've been wanting to write a Kid Maroon story for years upon years now. Because Kid Maroon feels like me. It's funny because I remember being a kid and how I couldn't wait to grow up. Every day I feel like I grew up too fast. I often wish I could go back. Kid faces that same struggle in our book. Sure, his world is laden with pulp gangsters and killers, but he's very much a child. This was always the undercurrent of the original Kid Maroon strips that Pep Shepard did. Sure, sometimes Pep occasionally had Kid rail against characters like Captain Pinko and write diatribes against Sales Tax, but at his best, those stories were always about a boy caught between worlds, his innocence always fragile, at risk of being shattered. That is the core of our book through and through."

Santos adds, "I must confess I did not know the existence of the character Kid Maroon, but as soon as I started investigating it was love at first sight. That wild boy was a compact version of The Spirit, Dick Tracy, and I don't know how many other pre-code pulp heroes. But at the same time he was everything I would have wanted to be when I was a brat, sneaking into my uncle's room to read those crime comics which were supposed to be too violent for a kid to read. I couldn't wait to take this awesome character and draw him into new adventures."

The double-length Kid Maroon #1 launches in November. Here's the full synopsis of the issue, as well as a five-page preview:

(Photo:
Kid Maroon preview page
- Vault Comics)

"Back in print for the first time in over 75 years in a stunning double-length issue #1... the world's only hard-boiled boy detective – KID MAROON. From Christopher Cantwell (Iron Man, Doctor Doom, The Blue Flame, Halt and Catch Fire) and Victor Santos (Polar, Violent Love)!

Two years ago, Walden Maroon outgrew his small town, his loving parents, and the low stakes mysteries involving missing butterflies and stolen cookies. Since then, he's dwelled within the cesspit of Crimeville, where murders, vice, and corruption are the city's bread and butter. But at 12 years old, Kid is weary. When a string of horrific killings and arsons spring up in the streets, can he crack the case with his quick wits and slingshot? Or does Kid Maroon secretly yearn for what he's never gotten to be... a kid?"

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