SEVEN IMAGE COMICS #1s FOR $1 EACH

Image adds five new titles, reprints two “Image Firsts” editions

Image Comics has added five new titles to its “Image Firsts” line, printings of first issues of the independent publisher’s most popular titles that sell for only $1.00. The Image Firsts editions of the phenomenally popular FATALE, SAGA, THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS, THIEF OF THIEVES, and REVIVAL will arrive in stores on December 12. In addition, new printings of the Image Firsts editions of THE WALKING DEAD and CHEW will be in stores on the same day.

FATALE is the newest title in the fruitful collaboration between writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips (Criminal, Incognito). Colored by Dave Stewart, FATALE tells the story of Josephine, an immortall femme fatale who unwillingly entrances men and ensnares them in a deadly, decades-long battle with unfathomable evil. Melding noir and horror, FATALE is called an “addictive page-turner” in a starred review of its first collection, DEATH CHASES ME, in Publishers Weekly.

SAGA, an ongoing series by Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Ex Machina) and Fiona Staples, has been the comics break-out hit of the year, garnering near-universal praise and a dedicated fan following. A space-opera-style science fiction adventure, SAGA follows a family on the run - Alana, Marko, and their baby Hazel - as they try to escape the ingrained hostilities that have kept their two worlds at war for centuries and threaten their lives. The first volume rose to fourth place on the New York Times Paperback Graphic Books Best Seller list. Publishers Weekly’s starred review called SAGA a “human story that will leave readers desperately awaiting the next volume.”

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS by Jonathan Hickman (Fantastic Four, Avengers), Nick Pitarra (THE RED WING, also with Hickman), and Jordie Bellaire tackles Cold War-era science like no comic has before - imagining a history where the group of geniuses who brought us the atomic bomb also worked on secret occult experiments. Comics Alliance called the series “pure mad science in comic book form.” Its first trade paperback hit stores in September.

THIEF OF THIEVES is a crime series created by Robert Kirkman (THE WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE) and published under his Image Comics imprint, Skybound. Redmond, a world-class thief, wants to leave behind his life of crime and rebuild his family, but it isn’t going to be so easy to resist the call of one last caper and escape his past. The first story arc of THIEF OF THIEVES, “I QUIT!”, written by Nick Spencer and with art by Shawn Martinbrough and Felix Serrano, was collected in September. A Booklist review says that Redmond’s “redemption, headed off at every corner, makes for a classic emotional stake, and the complexity of the plot, often flashing back to the past to explain the present, holds steady interest.”

REVIVAL is a completely new take on the undead genre that creators Tim Seeley (HACK/SLASH, WITCHBLADE) and Mike Norton (Battle Pug, IT GIRL AND THE ATOMICS) call “rural noir.” When, for one day, the dead rise in a small town in Wisconsin, it changes their quiet world forever. Officer Dana Cypress is tapped to investigate the phenomenon, only to discover it’s hit closer to home than she imagined. In a September article, FearNet writer Alison Nastasi wrote, “Revival peers at its readers from the underbelly of America’s heartland, embracing the moodiness and isolation of the rural landscape.” The collection of the first five issues, YOU’RE AMONG FRIENDS, will be in stores on December 12.