DSTLRY unveiled A Mischief of Magpies, a groundbreaking fantasy journey from writer Simon Spurrier and artist Matías Bergara—the recipients of the Angoulême Sélection Officielle, GLAAD Award, and multiple Eisner nominations, whose previous collaborations include CODA, Step By Bloody Step, and The Spire.
Debuting in April, this astonishing project revolves around Mar, a teenager who finds himself inexplicably transported to an extraordinary city, endlessly sailing a shoreless ocean. The city is built around a vast machine of two distinct halves: the bright, bustling spires above the waves, and the beast-haunted twilight halls below. Between them, playing on the beach, a troupe of anarchic magpies seems to have all the answers… but none of the questions.
Mar must navigate the dual extremes of this city-ship and the riddles posed by its bird-brained mediators, all while solving the true mystery: exactly why is he switching between his mundane life and this fantastical realm of dazzle and darkness?
“A Mischief Of Magpies marks the highest tide-line in my partnership with Matías,” co-creator and writer Simon Spurrier explains. “This is a singularly layered fantasy, as thrilling and spectacular as it is soul-shaking, digging deep into a youngster’s troubled heart and his struggles to understand how he fits into our world. Or indeed any world. A unique story deserves unique storytelling, and with this book we’re aiming for nothing less than a paradigm-shift in the possibilities of the comic-book form.”
“This is one of the most ambitious projects I’ve ever embarked on, which is saying something given Si’s and my creative trajectory,” continues co-creator and artist Matías Bergara. “The oversized format also gave this expansive world so much more room to unfold—I can’t wait for readers to hold it in their hands.”
Spurrier and Bergara’s newest collaboration builds on their legacy of pushing the limits of visual and narrative storytelling, bringing readers a fantasy masterpiece that spans sequential storytelling, prose, and illustration. A Mischief of Magpies will resonate with fans of The NeverEnding Story, Arcane, and The Boy and the Heron, featuring a relatable protagonist journeying into the unknown.
“Si and Matías have crafted something extraordinary and, once again, elevated the form,” says DSTLRY Co-Founder & CCO Chip Mosher. “It’s a rare work that both challenges the formalism of its genre while telling a gut punch of an emotional story.”
“A Mischief Of Magpies is the kind of ambitious story we strive to tell at DSTLRY,” continues DSTLRY Co-Founder & CCO David Steinberger.
Each issue of A Mischief of Magpies is presented in DSTLRY’s perfect-bound Prestige format, featuring wraparound covers with spot gloss on robust cover stock, complemented by 48 pages of exquisite interior stock. “It’s the DSTLRY difference,” says DSTLRY CCO & Co-Founder Chip Mosher.
