For the uninitiated, Image Expo is the annual mini-covention that Image Comics holds to announce their upcoming comic books for the year. This year the company decided they would live stream the announcements through Twitch, bringing up a bunch of new and old talent on Wednesday morning to tell the world about their latest releases.
As far as titles we’re already excited about, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman was on hand to talk about his previously announced new comic Oblivion Song, and we also got a sneak peek of the previously teased Michale Fiffe Bloodstrike reboot too.
For the old school Image fans out there, Todd McFarlane announced four projects to tie in with the release of his upcoming Spawn movie next year: a Medieval Spawn and Medieval Witchblade miniseries, Spawn Kills Everyone 2, a new unconnected female led title called Misery, and Sam and Twitch: True Detective. So that should keep the ’90s Image heads happy. Another interesting thing to note is that Image will be publishing all of Mark Millar’s upcoming Netflix comics, including the already announced The Magic Order, illustrated by Oliver Coipel.
Among the most exciting reveals were Annie Wu’s announcement of her first solo comic, Dead Guy Fan Club. It’s a neo-noir murder mystery based around a group of 30-somethings who regroup their teen fan club to investigate the mysterious death of their old fave rockstar. In Wu’s words, it’s “Hitchcock directing an episode of It’s Always Sunny.” (We’ve got a sneak peek here!)
Fangirling’s designer Jen Bartel continued her comics domination with the announcement of an ongoing series Blackbird with Green Lanterns writer Sam Humphries. According to Image, “Blackbird is a modern fantasy story best described as “Harry Potter meets Riverdale.” The book follows a young woman named Nina who discovers a neon-lit world of magic masters in Los Angeles.”
Another exciting title is the English language reprint of Mirka Andolfo’s Unnatural, an erotic fantasy set in an world of human-animal hybrids. Bingo Love’s Tee Franklin also announced a new miniseries with Maria Nguyen called Jook Joint, “a 5-issue time-period horror miniseries about a brothel/jazz club exposing the social evils of racism, rape, domestic violence, and inequality,” stated Image’s official copy.
Christopher Sebela announced two new titles with Image: Crowded (with Ro Stein), a satire about an app that people use to crowd-fund assassinations, and Shanghai Red (with Joshua Hickson), a “violent journey of vengeance, identity, and family.” Some other familiar faces were there too, as Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox announced Weather Man, a story about a local celebrity meteorologist whose life falls apart after he gets accused of committing the worst terror attack of all time.
Landry Q. Walker and Justin Greenwood took the stage to tell us about their new epic The Last Siege, which will be an ongoing fantasy title inspired by Spaghetti Westerns. Chew’s Rob Guillory announced a brand new solo book called Farmhand about a farmer whose crops begin to blossom in the form of body parts. Finally, Deadpool‘s Gerry Duggan and veteran artist John McCrea got dressed up to reveal Dead Rabbit, the story of a foulmouthed merc who’s pulled out of retirement with hilarious and bloody results!
A lot of people were waiting to see if the company would announce an editorial shuffle after Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson was promoted to Partner in recent weeks, but the only reveals this year involved the new titles. You can check out the full lineup of releases right here!
Will you be adding any of these new books to your pull list? Can’t wait to get your hands on some Jen Bartel interiors? Just love the smell of new comics in the morning? Let us know below!
Images: Image Comics
More comics news
- Marvel’s Black Panther relaunch sends T’Challa to space
- Joss Whedon will write the next “season” of Buffy comics
- All the cool new Tank Girl stuff coming out this year!
