What happens when a hardboiled crime story crashes headfirst into splatter-horror? You get Hammerfist, the new ongoing series from Rick Remender and Steve Epting coming to Image Comics this August.

The book follows Mike Denton, a hitman, junkie, and terrible father who’s spent his life chasing easy fixes. But when an ancient darkness called Black Noon threatens to erase all light, Mike has to get his act together, awaken a supernatural weapon powered by love, and save his daughter from literal evil.

Remender calls it a love letter to the “unhinged genre films of the VHS era.” Think Reservoir Dogs meets Evil Dead, a dirtbag crime tale that mutates into Raimi-style horror. “It’s wildly original, over-the-top, hard-R, but never forgetting to be fun,” he says.

Epting, who’s collaborated with Remender on Captain America before, says the book is “unpredictable, gritty and funny. There’s real emotion under all the blood and chaos, we just take the most violent road possible to get there.”

Hammerfist #1 drops August 26 with variant covers from Jerome Opeña, Nic Klein, Dan Panosian, Daniel Acuña, and Andrew Robinson.

For indie creators tired of playing it safe, this is what taking big creative swings looks like.