Epic Magazine

05/05/2026

Homeless, alcoholic, and depressed, Michael King lives in a UPS loading bay in Portland, Oregon. One rainy night, he stumbles upon an injured, scruffy cat and takes her in. Nursing her back to health, he names her Tabor. When winter comes, they travel from Oregon to the beaches of California and the high plains of Montana. Along the way, people are drawn to Tabor and moved to help Michael, who cuts a striking figure with the cat riding high on his backpack.

Just as Michael rescued Tabor, Tabor saves Michael. She comforts him when he's down and gives him something he hasn't had in a long time—someone to care for, and a reason to get sober. Surviving blizzards and bears, stampedes and rainstorms, Michael and Tabor wander the Western US, lost but not alone, happy strays.

But then Michael makes a shocking discovery which leaves him with an impossible decision to make: can he give up the cat who has become his family?

Written by Britt Collins, "Strays" is a heartwarming—and breaking—story of survival, friendship, and healing. Read it on the Epic site today.

https://strays.epicmagazine.com/

10/31/2024

Most kids would be terrified of growing up in a haunted Victorian Mansion down the road from a graveyard, but not Helen. She didn’t mind the ghosts she encountered daily—the quiet little boy who lived in her basement, the tattered Civil War soldiers who stood outside her front door, the spectral infants who drifted from their unmarked graves to her room to say hello. In fact, she loved them. They were her friends. More importantly, they were her partners in a pact: she would look after their home, and in return, the dead promised to protect her from a living danger, a figure who had been tracking Helen and her brother, Simon, since they were toddlers. Their mother called him the Bogeyman.

The Bogeyman had found Helen and Simon before and he had taken them thousands of miles away. It was months until they were rescued. Safely back in their mother’s care, they lived like prey behind locked doors, ever vigilant, always ready to move. The Bogeyman was still out there. And, to Helen, it seemed like no earthly force could stop him from returning. Co-published with Literary Hub, co-edited by Joshuah Bearman and Gina Mei and featuring art by Ruben Hiraga, Helen Vogelsong-Donahue’s heartbreaking, bone-chilling tale unveils the horrors of being hunted as well as the unexpected pleasures of being haunted.

https://lithub.com/good-ghosts-and-bad-fathers-the-story-of-a-haunting-a-kidnapping-and-an-international-incident/

07/11/2024

A 3,000-degree inferno at nearly 4 a.m. melted the freeway interchange known as the MacArthur Maze. It was 2007, and by the time the sun rose on Oakland, the double decker interchange had collapsed, blocking traffic in multiple directions. The state of California had a $5-million-dollar-a-day economic disaster on its hands.

Repairing it would be a gargantuan challenge, and Governor Schwarzenegger wanted it done in record time.

Enter C.C. Myers. A 6’ 6”, ostrich-boot-wearing construction legend, Myers pulled together a motley crew to do the job. Mitch Moxley’s feature in Popular Mechanics, published in glossy print for the April/May 2024 issue, recounts how he and his team pushed past setback after setback to pull off a seemingly impossible feat.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/preview/technology/infrastructure/a60433142/macarthur-maze-reconstruction-cc-myers/

05/20/2024

Some stills from "an extremely bingeable story"—Apple TV+'s THE BIG CIGAR, based on a true story by Epic's co-founder Joshuah Bearman and starring André Holland as Huey Newton.

05/19/2024

It was the '60s. The era of change, war, and rebellion. Huey Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was a revolutionary with a vision, first for self-defense against racist policing and then for an “intercommunal” world of bottom-up social reform. He wanted to change the world, and he did. Bert Schneider was a Hollywood revolutionary. With Easy Rider, he ushered in the New Hollywood era, a brief, shining decade when art and commerce were aligned on the silver screen.

Bert and Huey were best friends. Together, they wanted to change the world. And they did.

Then it was the '70s. The high-water mark of the era of idealism was in the rearview mirror. Huey and Bert had become titanic figures, but drugs, ego, and reactionary action from the government took their toll, and by 1974, Huey and Bert were on the ropes. Huey was being accused of a murder but said he was framed. After two years in solitary confinement on an overturned conviction, he refused to be mistreated in prison again.

So he showed up at Bert’s house in the Hollywood Hills in the middle of the night and said: I need to get out of here. Bert’s only question was: Where? Huey said: Cuba.

And so Bert, along with his producing partner, Huey, and the Black Panthers, planned a daring escape…

This is the story of Epic co-founder Joshuah Bearman’s article, "The Big Cigar." This weekend, that story comes to the screen in a limited series on Apple TV+. The first two episodes are out now, and then new episodes drop every Friday. Enjoy!

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-big-cigar/umc.cmc.5067l9fz7usyhgjfbzy6ib0na

04/26/2024

There's a new Epic article in the issue of Popular Mechanics that hit newsstands this week. Mitch Moxley's feature tells the tale of how an unconventional crew fixed a catastrophic bridge breakdown in record time. It's a treat to have a story in good old-fashioned print!

04/24/2024

Presenting the trailer for the limited series THE BIG CIGAR, based on an Epic true story about Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton's risky escape to Cuba—aided by a Hollywood producer making a fake movie. The series premieres 5/17.

The Black Panther Party, a fake movie production, and a nationwide manhunt. This is the true story of Huey P. Newton's escape to Cuba. The Big Cigar premiere...

03/22/2024

Felicidades a Eugenio Derbez, who won a Diosa de Plata (Mexico's equivalent of the Golden Globes) for his leading role in Radical!

Eugenio Derbez triunfa en la edición 48 de las Diosas de Plata como mejor actor por su trabajo en la cinta 'Radical', con lo que consolidó así su sueño de por...