Ok take a seat and listen up because this is some Grade-A awesome right here: at long last Robert Kirkman will be writing and Charlie Adlard will be drawing and inking the backstory of everyone’s favorite mother*#^$!%, Negan! This is no typical release though. The 48 pages of this story will be revealed over the course of the first twelve issues of Image+, which will be part of Diamond Comic Distributors’ monthly Previews Catalog. Image+ will also be available to purchase separate from the larger Previews Catalog for $1.99.
For those not familiar, Diamond’s Previews Catalog is a giant compilation of all the cool stuff that your local comic shop can order in advance, from every publisher. It’s got comics, toys, clothes, everything. Basically it’s page after page of really awesome stuff that’s heading your way. But it’s possibly got a bit TOO much stuff in it, and it can be easy to overlook certain things. Image+ will be a way to let retailers and fans really focus in on the cool stuff coming out from Image comics (which includes all of your Skybound favorites). You’ll be getting previews, covers, interviews, features, and more. We are very excited about Image+ and really proud to be including such an important, pivotal story in its pages! It begins THIS MAY!
Here’s the exciting FIRST PAGE of the series:
Completionists can read the entire Press Release RIGHT HERE:
Image Comics announces Previews Catalog magazine: Image+
Image Comics and Diamond Comic Distributors are pleased to announce Image+, an all-new monthly magazine which will feature Image’s upcoming releases, as well as bonus creator-owned comics content. Each issue will be distributed with Diamond’s PREVIEWS Catalog each month, with the first issue of Image+ available in May.
Each of the first twelve issues of Image+ magazine will feature an original, four-page THE WALKING DEAD story concerning Negan’s origins, and created by New York Times bestselling team Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, for a total of 48 pages of backstory
PREVIEWS has long served as a sales tool meant to guide retailer orders, inspire customer pre-orders with new solicitations, and provide product listings for the months to come.
“PREVIEWS is a useful tool for retailers and customers alike,” said Corey Murphy, Director of Sales at Image Comics. “With the Image+ magazine and the new and original content each issue, month in and month out, we hope to bring fresh eyes and excitement to our PREVIEWS product listings once again.”
Image+ will clock in at 64 pages and feature exclusive interviews, spotlight features, bonus never-before-seen preview pages, editorials from industry voices, and more in-depth, insightful and provocative comics coverage curated by David Brothers, Branding Manager at Image Comics.
Brothers added: “Comics are exciting, and it does them and their creators a disservice to give them rote, by-the-numbers coverage. I cut my teeth on video game magazines before writing about comics professionally, and I’m excited to push that experience in a new direction alongside Sasha Head, our Sales & Marketing Production Designer. From my perspective, comics have always been cool, and this is a chance to show everyone exactly why I feel that way.”
Image+ will be available for free to customers who purchase a PREVIEWS Catalog each month or can be purchased separately for only $1.99. “We’re pleased to be working with Diamond on this exciting addition to the monthly PREVIEWS catalog,” said Eric Stephenson, Publisher at Image Comics. “We look forward to sharing news about our upcoming titles and the creators that both entertain and inform retailers and fans alike.”
The first issue of Image+ will appear in the PREVIEWS Catalog with July releasing solicitations and will be available in stores this May. The standard Image Comics solicitations for each month will continue to appear in PREVIEWS Catalog as usual.
Sort of confused. So I either purchase the catalog to get the story, or I can purchase Image + seperate? Just need to make sure so I can notify my store.
Was really hoping Bonansinga would bring us Negan’s backstory.
The governor novels were delicious cookies and then the continuation of Woodbury was sumptuous icing. A Negan novel would have been the diabetes that kills me. I’m sure a comic will make me grin plenty either way.
Hmmm, that woulda been cool, but what could be better than straight from the source?
The source (Kirkman) is in on the novels & they’re a lot more detailed than the comic. A novel can cover much more ground than 48 pages of art & speech bubbles. Not knocking the comic at all… by no means… but the novels written about The Governor complemented the comic hugely (for me) & Negan deserves that kind of attention.
Finally!
The novels are delicious. I keep hoping more are in the works. Maybe if not Negan, then perhaps the Whisperers.
Magna, alexandria safe zone, the prison – post exodus, morgans absence, the list is endless, i just wish kirkman would sell his soul and franchise out some of the rights to some of this stuff, cuz at this point, his fans will buy anything with the walking dead on the cover… Including myself of course, an unrepentant TWD junkie
12 issues ? 48 pages in total?
Soo like, we’re gonna be reading 4 pages each?
Basically. In my opinion, I’m just going to wait until they come out with ALL the pages, and they come out with a NEGAN SPECIAL. They did it with Michonne when it was first in Playboy, and it came out later in October 2012 as a special, and with The Governor in the Image CBLDF and it came out later in February 2013, and Tyreese when it came it first in the Free Comic Boom Day Special and later as its own SPECIAL in October 2013.
I think the twelfth issue comes out the month before next year’s free comic book day. You might be right
I Just hope we can buy it in a complete form later on
F*#% YEAH !!!!! o/
Finally… Thank you guys… All right, I’m super excited but I’m kind of confused.
Will it be twelve 4-pages mini-stories or twelve 4-pages chapters to a single Negan prequel ?
So I guess I’ll buy two copies of this each month. One to put away and one to rip the pages out and bind them together?
Really?!…
I’m not sure how excited to get. I mean, Negan is, as far as I’m concerned, the single greatest character ever. I love the idea of this, of getting to know a bit more about the man. I know I’ll get them.
The problem is, I actually hated the Governor books and feel like they ruined the character for me. He was a truly evil, sadistic, psychopathic rapist. Suddenly the books have him an entirely different character and turns him from being a monster to a guy who basically had a breakdown and decided to try to become his brother. I prefer to just continue to see the Governor as Phillip Blake, the true monster.
I have seriously never loved a fictional character as much as I do Negan. I just don’t want them to pretty much change him all of a sudden, that’s all.
I don’t think you have anything to worry about because I bet Negan was already a tyrant prior to the apocalypse, which just allowed him to capitalize on it.
I hope that’s pretty much what they’ll do. It would make sense. With many characters the fear, grief, and seriously traumatic experiences could make for a villain origin story. They’ve ended up with a twisted sense of what it takes to survive. In Negan’s case, he’s the happiest man in the apocalypse. He’s enjoying himself too much to have been traumatized into becoming the man he is. I just want the background stories to be good, let us learn a little more about him, and keep Negan, Negan.
Here comes the fun part…what DID Negan do before the apocalypse? The guessing game begins.
I’m going with corrupt, gung-ho cop.
Ice cream truck driver.
LMAO!
Lead singer of a punk rock band.
The style, the mouth, the charisma. It’s all there. Oi Oi Oi!
He was a car salesman.
Where did you asked this question?
I’m curious about the Magna theory!!
It’s pretty much an accepted piece of the canon, I guess, that he used to be a used car salesman…. While I can see certain elements of that type of personality paralleling with Negan, I personally hope that this won’t ultimately be the case. I remember back 2 years ago or so reading some fan-fiction interpretation of Negan’s backstory off of the roamersandlurkers.com page. It told a story of an aprehensive and timid Negan. Who at some point shortly after the turn ran into a decent sized group of people who would match the Saviors motif of leather and bandanas, punk rock types. Though they weren’t called the Saviors, and the were led by a tough bad ass, ass kicking woman named Lucille. After she saves Negan she pretty much spends most of their time together picking on him and giving him shit, all while trying to toughen him up in her unique way. Then when I got to the part where they start to get somewhat intimate the remaining 8 or so chapters of this fan-fiction disappeared from existance. I never did find that story again, I never got to learn about what happened to the actual woman Lucille, or how Negan rose to badass status to take over the group or when and under what circumstances a barb-wire covered baseball bat came into the equation. At any rate, speaking only for myself, someone who considers themselves to be arguably the biggest Negan fan there could ever be. I thought it was a well written piece. And whatever Kirkman decides to come up with for him had better be AT LEAST as good as the fan-fiction I read..
Used Car Salesman is correct. What would be great is if Negan was just some slimy little no one… a two bit hustler who seized his opportunity to take power at the end of the world.
I think he probably was either a lawyer or a baby seal clubber. His childhood hobbies included: lighting cats on fire, pouring sugar in cars gas tanks, throwing bowling balls off freeway bridges and free dental inspections.
If you go for print issues & don’t have an LCS and/or want to save money, Image Direct is the way to go! I just switched, picked up Image+, & cut my previous cost with my OCS BY HALF!