Impaler is coming back. Image Comics and Top Cow announced yesterday that writer William Harms and artist Christian DiBari are reviving the vampire series as an all-new, 6-issue miniseries, with Impaler #1 arriving in comic shops on Wednesday, February 3. Check out the official post down below:
The new series opens after vampires have destroyed the world. A group of survivors is huddled in the ruins of the Pentagon, and their only chance of survival rests on resurrecting Vlad the Impaler. The real question is whether Vlad will be their savior or their destroyer.
Harms is a BAFTA nominee whose credits include the Image series White Sky and the video games Mafia III and Infamous. DiBari's previous comics include Revolvers, Magdalena: Reformation and Destiny Gate. Colorist Lee Loughridge, who won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book and has worked on The Darkness and Aquaman, rounds out the interior team.
What Harms And DiBari Said About The Return
"Impaler has always held a special place in my heart, and I'm thrilled to return to it," Harms said in the announcement. He described the vampires in the book as "terrifying, brutal, and utterly unrelenting," and added, "It's been thrilling to watch Christian and Lee bring this story to horrifying life, and I can't wait for readers, new and old, to experience it."
DiBari called working with Harms and Top Cow "a real treat" and described the project as a "bleak, dark story with all kinds of cool characters and world building."
Every Impaler #1 Cover
Impaler #1 ships with variant covers by Matt Timson, Jason Shawn Alexander and Dani, plus a Blank Sketch cover and 3 incentive virgin variants:
- Cover A by DiBari and Lee Loughridge
- Cover B by Matt Timson
- Cover C by Jason Shawn Alexander
- Cover D by Dani and Brad Simpson
- Cover E Blank Sketch Cover
- Cover F 1:10 copy incentive virgin by Timson
- Cover G 1:25 copy incentive virgin by Alexander
- Cover H 1:50 copy incentive virgin by Dani and Simpson
Timson's cover connects the new book to the property's past, since he drew the Impaler ongoing that Top Cow launched in 2008. Alexander is known for Killadelphia, and Dani's credits include Coffin Bound. The series will also be released digitally on Amazon Kindle, Google Play, Apple Books, Nook, Everand, Kobo, OverDrive, Hoopla and other platforms.
How Impaler Started At Image
Harms first published Impaler through Image in 2006 and 2007. Issue #1 arrived in October 2006, #2 followed in November, and #3 came out in February 2007, with pencils by Nick Postic and inks and colors by Nick Marinkovich. That original story was set in New York City during one of the worst blizzards in its history, when a derelict cargo ship found adrift offshore released a vampire plague that spread through the snowbound city.
Retiring NYPD homicide detective Victor Dailey and a small band of survivors were rescued by Vlad Tepes, the historical figure who inspired the Dracula legend, cast here as a vampire hunter instead of the lord of the vampires. Vlad then forced the group to help him assault the lair of the original vampire.
The Image run stopped after 3 issues despite a nomination for the International Horror Guild Award. In 2008, Top Cow picked the series up and released Impaler Vol. 1 in October, collecting the 3 Image issues plus 3 never-before-published chapters that finished the first arc. Francis Tsai colored the fourth chapter and drew the fifth and sixth, John Paul Leon painted the cover and horror novelist F. Paul Wilson wrote the introduction.
Top Cow publisher Filip Sablik said at the time that Harms had "managed to put a truly unique spin on 'the vampire story' by taking Vlad the Impaler and making him a vampire hunter." The new ongoing, drawn by Timson, followed that December, and Harms' own site lists a Volume 2 collection with an introduction by Jonathan Maberry. Image's catalog shows the most recent Impaler release as Impaler: Epilogue in February 2015.
The 2027 miniseries moves the setting from a single besieged city to a planet the vampires have already conquered, with the survivors operating out of what is left of the U.S. military's headquarters.
Should Vlad the Impaler be written as humanity's protector in the new miniseries, or as the bigger threat waiting for his chance to strike?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.