Queen Kodiak

After the death of her mother, an embattled 17 year old moves in with her father on Alaska's Kodiak island where she befriends a legendary 3000 lb. bear. Unfortunately, the bear's inevitable capture upsets a millenia-old kaiju grizzly named Queen Kodiak, who will destroy everything in her path to collect her cub.

Following in the massive footsteps of legends like Godzilla and King Kong, comes QUEEN KODIAK, a colossal, super-charged Kodiak grizzly bear... one who survived from the ice-age and who's been irreversibly enhanced by a mysterious geo-thermal energy pulsing in the unknown depths of an Alaskan ice cave. And although QUEEN KODIAK's been asleep for thousands of years, melting ice and subsequent tectonic activity has disturbed her hibernation. And in her debut graphic novel, she wakes up to find her only cub missing.

But as much as we want to meet her and watch her wreck shop on the pacific northwest (sorry Seattle), our story actually centers on JOEY FOX, an embattled 17-year-old girl, and natural empath, who befriends Queen Kodiak's cub after a tectonic shift in her own life -- the recent passing of her mother. As a result, Joey's been sent to Alaska's Kodiak island to live with the man who left them ten years ago, her state trooper father. In many ways it's a story about how families survive overwhelming odds.

Author: Christopher Greenslate
Publisher: Maverick
Published: 01/27/2026
Pages: 168
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.44h x 5.99w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9781545821015
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
School Library Journal 11/07/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
CHRISTOPHER GREENSLATE is an award-winning writer and filmmaker whose work has been featured at film festivals worldwide and been highlighted by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and National Public Radio.

Riccardo Faccini is an Italian artist who has dedicated his adult life to the world of comics and graphic novels. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Art in Turin, Italy, he has gone on to work with writers and publishers around the world, including Dark Horse Comics, Scout Comics, Leviathan Labs and Shockdom. Most recently, he has had the pleasure of collaborating with Dark Horse comics on Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories, as well as working on the award winning series Fractured Shards.
In addition to the USA and Australia, he has also published in the Franco-Belgian market with the French publisher Editions Petit á Petit.

Dearbhla Kelly is a freelance comic colorist, designer and illustrator. As well as editorial illustration for The Irish Times and Irish Independent, her work includes interior color for comics such as I Walk With Monsters (Vault), Gatsby (AWA), Sort of Super (Simon & Schuster), Pantomime (Mad Cave Studios), Human Remains (Vault) and 007 (Dynamite). She has also written short comics for Red Sonja, Vampirella and The Irish Times. Their recent work includes colour for Unnatural Order (Vault), which has made waves in the comics world as one of the best-selling new independent comics of 2023. Dearbhla is also a committee member for DCAF - the Dublin Comics Arts Festival - which runs quarterly in Richmond Barracks, showcasing the best of Irish indie comics talent.

Justin Birch is a Ringo Award-nominated letterer born and raised in the hills of West Virginia. Lettering comics since 2015, he is a member of the lettering studio AndWorld Design and has worked with AWA, Boom!, DC, Dark Horse, IDW, Image, Mad Cave Studios, and numerous indy publishers. Justin still lives in West Virginia, only now it's with his loving wife, daughters, and their dog, Kirby.