Hans Rickheit Gets Digital With ‘Ectopiary’

Hans Rickheit, creator of "The Squirrel Machine," perhaps the most wonderfully surreal graphic novels of the year, has a new project in the works that's making its debut in the digital space.

"Ectopiary," is the artist's new graphic novel project, which he's debuting at a rate of one page a week (until time allows otherwise). Although Rickheit's stated that he hasn't categorized the work into a proper genre beyond "science fiction" yet - the title's mashup of "ecto" (short for ectoplasm I presume?) and "topiary" (shrub sculpture) is a strong indicator that the potentially 600-page story will be my kind of weird.

The serialization aspect seems to follow Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's "Freak Angels" model a bit, posting a complete OGN a page at a time on a regular schedule before releasing a printed collection.

I personally dig this plan of attack, although it usually only takes a few pages to convince me to pick something up (in this case, two pages since I'm already a big fan of Rickheit's work).

As The Beat mentioned, Rickheit's release schedule could take some serious time, but if there's any chance the story could result in ghost hedge mazes, I am likely to be one its biggest boosters.