Edinburgh comic creator Dave Cook has returned to Kickstarter to fund the second issue of Killtopia: Phantoms, moving his award-winning cyberpunk series into psychological horror. Created alongside artist Clark Bint, colourist Emma Oosterhous, and letterer Micah Myers, the campaign funded within days of launch, beating its £4,500 target and raising more than £6,300 from nearly 300 backers.
Set five years after the mech-hunting bloodsport of the original five-volume series, this eight-issue sequel arc pulls away from gladiatorial arena games and into the neon alleys of Shibuya. A mass mind hack unleashed on Halloween night forces citizens to witness their deepest fears as waking physical threats, triggering widespread urban riots. In response, authorities mobilise Phantoms, an elite tactical police unit led by former arena champion Bloody Mary.
From Arena Bloodsports to Psychological Dread
Geek Native has backed and tracked Dave Cook’s career since the days of Bust and Vessels. Reviewing the very first issue of the series in our original Killtopia review, we noted:
A slam dunk. Killtopia creates a scarily believable future featuring capitalism after the bomb and drops you right in it.”
The property grew steadily across its initial run, picked up by Glasgow publisher BHP Comics and later collected by Titan Comics. The comic also broke out into transmedia when Killtopia was optioned for an anime adaptation to launch virtual production studio Voltaku, bringing onboard Love, Death & Robots screenwriter Phil Gelatt to write the animated series. Throughout that growth, Cook has stood as a vocal champion for independent creators. When Kickstarter flirted with decentralised tokens, Cook was among the first prominent creators to protest blockchain integration, and he has maintained that same human-first stance by keeping his books strictly free of generative machine-made art.
That dedication to craft shows across Phantoms. Cook and Bint channel the claustrophobic dread of Junji Ito and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. In issue two, Mary and her squad mate Hab trace an illicit weapons ring run by Nova, an exiled Yakuza heiress who prints operational firearms and blades directly from her hands using hard-light augmentations.
The series uses this setup to bite into modern corporate satire. Neo Tokyo’s police force operates on a gamified bounty structure, paying officers real-time cash bonuses for rapid arrests and stripping legal guilt or innocence out of law enforcement entirely. Meanwhile, Mary’s neural medication fails her, opening her mental barrier to the hacker. The resulting hallucinations threaten her grip on reality during high-speed highway chases, forcing her to confront a buried past while her squad hunts down an artefact called ‘The Eyes of Neo Tokyo’.
Creative Roster and Crowdfunding Rewards
The production team pairs Cook with co-creator Clark Bint (Rebel Moon: House of Bloodaxe), colourist Emma Oosterhous (Grand Slam Romance), and letterer Micah Myers (Puerto Rico Strong, The Disasters). This marks Cook’s nineteenth Kickstarter project, backed by a proven record of delivering physical comics.
Instead of an overwhelming menu of pledge tiers, the campaign keeps reward options focused. Digital readers can back for £4 to receive the standalone PDF of issue two, step up to £8 for issues one and two, or secure the complete digital archive for £18, which packages the entire original five-issue run alongside both Phantoms releases. Physical collectors can pick up a signed 24-page print edition of issue two with a digital copy for £6, or grab both issues in signed print for £12. Dedicated readers looking for the complete archive can pledge £70 for a 300-page signed physical collection spanning the entire original series, plus Phantoms #1 and #2, with custom add-ons such as exclusive A4 art prints from guest artist Yishan Li.
This all-or-nothing project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Sunday, 20 September 2026 at 11:52 AM BST. Digital delivery and international physical shipping are scheduled to begin in March 2027.
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