January 2027’s lineup brings a new five-issue paranormal crime series into the spotlight, sends The Toxic Avenger further into a very strange fight for Tromaville, and leaves one particularly unsettling one-shot waiting just beyond the month’s border. The key scheduling clarification is simple: Kindergarten Gulag is not a January release. The Mark Russell and Mauricet one-shot is dated February 3, 2027.
That distinction matters for readers planning a monthly pull list. January’s confirmed books are Corduroy Road #1, arriving January 6 for $4.99, and Toxic Avenger Vs The Noxious Offender #3, arriving January 13 for $4.99. Kindergarten Gulag, priced at $7.99, follows on February 3.
Corduroy Road #1 opens a five-part Chicago mystery
Corduroy Road #1 is written by Eric Palicki, illustrated by Chris Peterson, and features a cover by Erica Henderson. It is the opening chapter of a five-issue limited series. The premise begins with the grisly murder of the Suydam family in Chicago, a crime attached to a wider sense that something unnatural is happening in the city.
Into that case steps Paul Corduroy, a private investigator whose work includes killing monsters. That hybrid job description establishes the series’ central combination: it is a detective story, but the kinds of threats involved are beyond the normal reach of police procedure. The first issue also promises revelations about Paul himself, meaning the investigation is not positioned as an entirely detached case for its protagonist.
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In comic-book terms, a limited series is a story planned to run for a fixed number of issues rather than an ongoing title with no announced endpoint. Here, the “of 5” designation tells prospective readers that Corduroy Road is designed as a five-part arc. That can be useful information for readers who prefer a contained mystery: the series has an announced structure from its first installment, even though the available description does not reveal where the case will lead.
The book is described as a mix of mystery and paranormal action, with comparisons to Hack/Slash and Something Is Killing the Children. Those comparisons signal tone and broad genre territory rather than plot continuity. Readers should not take them to mean a crossover or shared setting. What is firmly established is the Chicago setting, the Suydam-family murders, Paul Corduroy’s unusual profession, and a story that treats monstrous danger as part of the case.
What the debut issue is setting up
The most immediate draw is the collision between investigative fiction and horror. A private investigator normally follows clues, interviews people, and untangles motive. A monster killer implies a much more direct and hazardous answer when ordinary methods fail. Putting both functions in the same lead character gives Corduroy Road room to ask whether a murder has a human explanation, a supernatural one, or an uncomfortable overlap of both.
There is also a personal-story hook in the suggestion that Paul will learn shocking things about himself. That is deliberately broad, so the precise nature of the discovery remains unknown. Still, it establishes that the series’ horror will not be limited to an external threat. For anyone deciding whether to begin with issue #1, the launch is framed as both the start of a murder investigation and the start of a protagonist-centered mystery.
Citizen Toxie enters the fight in issue #3
Toxic Avenger Vs The Noxious Offender #3 continues the five-issue miniseries on January 13. Matt Bors writes the issue, Felipe Sobreiro supplies the art, and Bors also provides the cover. The setup is appropriately exaggerated: the Toxic Avenger has been crushed into a cube and submerged, leaving the Noxious Offender free to menace Tromaville.
That apparent defeat does not end the conflict. A third mop-wielding presence emerges, setting up the rise of Citizen Toxie. The solicitation does not explain Citizen Toxie’s identity, origin, powers, or loyalties, so those details are best left as part of the issue’s reveal. What it does make clear is that issue #3 shifts the series from a straight hero-versus-villain setup into a three-sided confrontation.
The phrase “of 5” again indicates a finite run. As the middle installment, issue #3 is likely most useful to readers already following the miniseries, since its premise starts from a severe setback for the lead character and continues the Noxious Offender’s threat to Tromaville. Nothing in the available information confirms a recap or a standalone structure, so readers new to the series may want to account for the first two chapters when planning their reading.
The mop is not incidental imagery in this clash. It is tied directly to the Toxic Avenger’s recognizable identity and becomes a visual marker of the newly introduced player. That gives the Citizen Toxie tease a deliberately pulpy comic-book shape: the hero is incapacitated, the villain has room to operate, and a similarly equipped wildcard suddenly changes the board.
Kindergarten Gulag is a February one-shot, not a January book
Kindergarten Gulag arrives February 3, 2027, with Mark Russell writing and Mauricet handling both interior art and cover art. The one-shot begins with a man waking up as the only prisoner in a prison controlled by five very young children. The children then debate whether to kill him.
Its setup is intentionally disturbing, built around an inversion of assumptions about innocence and authority. The story is presented as a meditation on the ways supposedly innocent things can hurt people. That provides a useful expectation for its approach: the premise is not merely about creepy children in an unlikely prison, but about the discomfort created when childhood, power, and cruelty sit in the same frame.
A one-shot is a comic designed as a self-contained release rather than the beginning of an announced serial sequence. For readers, that generally means there is no issue #2 required to reach the intended ending. It does not guarantee that every question will be answered or that a character can never return, but it does distinguish Kindergarten Gulag from the five-issue structures of Corduroy Road and Toxic Avenger Vs The Noxious Offender.
Russell and Mauricet previously collaborated on the one-shot Thanksgiving. The new book’s February placement is especially important because early listing material contained errors: the date needs to be treated as February 3, and the credited creative pairing is Russell and Mauricet. Readers looking only at January releases should therefore not expect the comic that month.
A practical January and February checklist
- January 6, 2027: Corduroy Road #1 (of 5) — Eric Palicki, Chris Peterson, and cover artist Erica Henderson; $4.99.
- January 13, 2027: Toxic Avenger Vs The Noxious Offender #3 (of 5) — Matt Bors and Felipe Sobreiro, with a Bors cover; $4.99.
- February 3, 2027: Kindergarten Gulag one-shot — Mark Russell and Mauricet; $7.99.
The selection is united more by off-kilter genre energy than by a shared universe. Corduroy Road offers a fresh paranormal procedural with a monster-killing investigator. Toxic Avenger Vs The Noxious Offender advances an established five-part conflict through an outsized reversal and the arrival of Citizen Toxie. Kindergarten Gulag stands apart as a self-contained, unsettling story, but belongs on February calendars rather than January ones.
