Mike Mignola returns to Lands Unknown in “Uri Tupka and the Gods”

Mike Mignola’s new dark folklore universe, Lands Unknown, is expanding, and if the next installment is anything like the first, we’re all in for a wonderfully weird ride.

Following the critical and commercial success of Bowling with Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown — an anthology of short, eerie, and shadowy tales (that sold out its first printing almost instantly) — Dark Horse Comics has just announced the follow-up. Uri Tupka and the Gods is a 104-page graphic novel written and drawn by Mignola, with colors once again by longtime collaborator Dave Stewart. The book arrives February 24, 2026.

Where Bowling with Corpses introduced us to a strange new world via a series of loosely connected tales, Uri Tupka zeroes in on one oddball character: Uri Tupka, a former Doctor of Theology turned fugitive heretic, wandering the lands in search of evidence that the gods are real. In classic Mignola style, the search quickly becomes far more than it seems.

“This is the first of two books tracing the life of Uri Tupka…” explains Mignola. “See Uri barely escape one disaster after another—pirates, bandits, witches and demons, giants and monsters. There is also a talking cat and a queen of the vegetables because, of course, why wouldn’t there be?”

If Bowling with Corpses was a pitch-perfect mash-up of folklore, dark fantasy, and the macabre — equal parts Italo Calvino and Edward Gorey — Uri Tupka and the Gods looks to expand that scope with a full-blown theological quest. But don’t expect a somber meditation on the divine order. This is Mike Mignola we’re talking about. The gods here look like they were doodled in the margins of a medieval apocalyptic manuscript after too much bog ale — and that’s a feature, not a bug.

Mignola describes Uri Tupka and the Gods as “some of the most fun I’ve ever had drawing comics.” With each new release, he seems ever freer to wander down increasingly bizarre narrative alleys, pairing his minimalist lines and dark shadows with an expanding menagerie of haunted knick-knacks, cursed body parts, and tragic figures trying (and often failing) to make sense of an unknowable world.

So, pack your haversack with hard tack, say your prayers (to gods who may or may not be listening), and prepare to follow Uri Tupka into lands unknown.