Image Comics will be the new home for writer Kurt Busiek’s creator-owned work, including new series, original graphic novels, and deluxe editions of his older work.
To kick off his tenure at Image, Busiek will team up with artist Carlos Pacheco for Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines, a six-issue miniseries that will launch in January 2022. The story follows the adventures of an airman, Fletcher Arrow, in an alternative World War I that is fought with magic by humans and supernatural creatures. Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines #1 will have a main cover by Pacheco, Rafael Fonteriz, and Jose Villarubia, as well as three variant covers, a 1:25 incentive, and a 1:50 incentive.
In February, Image will publish an oversized, fully remastered collection of the first six-issue Arrowsmith miniseries, which ran from 2003 to 2004. While the series has been collected into trade paperbacks before, this is the first hardcover edition.
Astro City will be next. In 2018, Busiek announced on Twitter that the monthly series would end with issue #52 (see “‘Astro City’ Monthly Ends”), but now he plans to pick it up again, starting with a one-shot comic in March that will introduce some new characters and set up a new storyline. The Astro City artists, Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, and Alex Sinclair, will collaborate with Busiek on an original urban-fantasy Astro City graphic novel, The Gods on Sunday, and then the team will continue on to a new Astro City ongoing series. Image also plans to publish new collected editions of the earlier Astro City series, bringing the entire backlist back into print.
Later in 2022, Image will publish Free Agents, a new series co-written by Busiek and Fabian Nicieza; Stephen Mooney will be the artist. Also in late 2022, Busiek will resume The Autumnlands, an Image series Busiek did with artist Benjamin Dewey and colorist Jordie Bellaire from 2015 to 2017.
Rounding out the Busiek library, Image will release new editions of backlist titles, including Shockrockets and Superstar: As Seen on TV, two collaborations with Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, and Jeromy Cox, and The Wizard’s Tale, by Busiek and David Wenzel, all of which were most recently published by IDW.
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Source: ICv2
