A dystopian saga 30 years in the making is finally coming stateside.

Eisner Award winner Joe Pruett and French artist Philippe Xavier are teaming up for The Territory, a five-issue miniseries launching in January from Image Comics. It’s a post-apocalyptic story that mashes up Lone Wolf and Cub with The Road and Mad Max.

The setup: civilization collapsed 16 years ago. Now a lone man and a mysterious young girl are hunted through a brutal wasteland called the Territory, bound together by chance and racing toward a destiny neither saw coming.

Xavier has been producing stunning work for the French market for two decades, but American audiences haven’t had much access to it. Pruett says readers are in for a treat. “His breathtaking landscapes and exquisite attention to detail will captivate and delight American audiences as much as it has the European.”

The collaboration itself is a milestone. Pruett and Xavier first met in 1994, started working on this project in 2024, so the series celebrates 30 years of friendship.

Xavier promises a harsh ride. “Enter the Territory at your own risk! Don’t forget your wool hat and furry gloves.”

The Territory #1 drops January 6 with variant covers by Brandon Peterson, Joe Benitez, and Stevan Subic. For indie comics fans hungry for international talent and dystopian grit, this one’s worth tracking down.

What happens when you throw Monty Python into a blender with Dune? You get The Ludocrats, a completely unhinged new trade paperback from Image Comics that makes being ridiculous a literal virtue.

The series comes from New York Times bestselling writer Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + The Divine, Die), game designer Jim Rossignol (Sir, You Are Being Haunted), and artist Jeff Stokely (The Spire). It’s available now, collecting issues 1-5.

At the center is Baron Otto Von Subertan, a main character so excessive he makes the Queen of Hearts look reasonable. Alongside his deadpan companion Professor Hades Zero-K, he defends their bizarre civilization against the ultimate enemies: banality and boredom.

Think I Hate Fairyland humor meets The Silmarillion’s elaborate world-building. The creative team loads every page with aristocratic customs, impossible architecture, sexual jokes, and visual gags. Colorist Tamra Bonvillain and letterer Clayton Cowles round out the team.

Critics are calling it “pure, bonkers joy” and praising Stokely’s art as the real highlight. One reviewer compared it to Matt Groening’s Disenchantment mixed with H.P. Lovecraft.

The Ludocrats proves indie comics can take massive swings at genre satire. For readers tired of straight-faced fantasy epics, this absurdist ride offers a welcome antidote.

The Devil of Woodsburgh is back.

Mirka Andolfo is returning to the world of her international hit Mercy with Merciless, a four-issue miniseries launching this December from Image Comics. This time, she’s teaming up with artist Lidia Bolognini (Sweet Paprika: Black, White & Pink) for a new Gothic horror tale set 15 years after the original.

“Mercy readers have been waiting for this sequel, and I’m so happy it’s finally on its way!” Andolfo says. The story follows Rory, now all grown up and ready to uncover dark secrets in Woodsburgh.

The mining town thought it was done with devils. But when Rory arrives to open her factory, a mysterious drug called Electric Sumac starts spreading through the streets, turning ordinary people unnaturally strong and dangerously unhinged. Rory and her companion Joel know the drug’s origins aren’t earthly, and they’re determined to stop it.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Bancroft returns to settle his father’s unfinished business. Old debts resurface, secrets unravel, and Rory might find herself caught in the middle of it all.

Andolfo describes it as a dark supernatural horror story perfect for fans of From Hell, Fatale, and the original Mercy series.

Merciless #1 drops December 2 at comic shops, with 11 different covers including incentive variants. For anyone catching up, the complete Mercy series is collected in a trade paperback available now.

A team of disgraced spies locked up in their own former headquarters is planning a breakout. Fort Psycho #5 kicks off “False Flags,” a new story arc from Matt Kindt and Brian Hurtt hitting shelves December 16th.

The series follows elite operatives who took down the world’s most wanted terrorist, then got disavowed and thrown into a prison on their old island base. Now they’re plotting escape, pairing off two by two, while hunting for the double agent who put them there.

“The bad guys don’t know they’re the bad guys. But on the other hand, the good guys never doubt they’re the good guys,” Kindt said. “Look. We can’t all be the good guys right?”

Hurtt promised things get darker. “Sex, violence, and cannibalism! The False Flags storyline brings the Seven Seals baddies onto the scene,” he said. “I can’t wait for readers to get to know Red Lion and his vicious appetites.”

Oni Press is releasing the first trade paperback, Fort Psycho Vol. 1: Kinetic Action, the same day. It collects issues 1-4 and sets up the world: ten years ago, Singapore sank. A terrorist group called The Seven Seals took credit. The UN sent a strike team after them. It went wrong.

Issue #5 features covers by Hurtt, Lewis LaRosa, and Charlie Adlard. Both the single issue and the trade drop December 16th from Oni Press and Flux House.

The artist behind Oblivion Song and Void Rivals is stepping out as a writer.

Lorenzo de Felici’s Red Roots is getting collected into a trade paperback this fall from Image Comics. The five-issue series marks de Felici’s debut as both writer and artist, a big shift for someone who made his name drawing Robert Kirkman’s genre-bending hits.

Red Roots follows a professional killer and a high school teacher whose lives collide through some kind of terrifying, mysterious force. Think The Mist meets The Cabin in the Woods, with dark fantasy lore and puzzle-box storytelling that twists as it goes.

De Felici proved he could draw the hell out of a comic. Oblivion Song put him on the map. Void Rivals, his tentpole Energon Universe book with Kirkman, became one of 2024’s biggest launches and is on its 12th reprint. Now he’s flying solo, and the early buzz suggests he can write too.

Kirkman himself called it “the comic series you’ve been waiting your whole life for.” AIPT praised its “bold, exciting, and visually striking” approach, noting how de Felici trusts readers to sit with tension as two unrelated stories slowly converge.

Red Roots, Vol. 1 hits comic shops October 21 and bookstores November 17. For indie creators trying to break out, this is proof that doing the work, building your reputation, and taking the leap can pay off.

Telepathic twin brothers hustling poker in Seoul’s criminal underworld. What could go wrong?

Eisner Award winning writer Derek Kirk Kim (The Last Mermaid, Same Difference) and artist Jacob Perez (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) are bringing a supernatural crime caper to Image Comics this fall with Royals, a standalone graphic novel hitting shelves in November.

The story follows twins Paul and Castor, who use their telepathic connection to cheat at poker in the shadowy back alleys of Seoul, South Korea. Their hustle works perfectly until they get caught by Seoul’s most ruthless criminal syndicate. Now the brothers have to pull off a major heist to pay off their debt, using their gift for something bigger than themselves for the first time. That is, if they don’t kill each other first.

The Comics Beat called it “a very well-executed comic book, one that I think is very much worth reading even if you don’t think casinos are interesting, don’t have a brother, and think superpowers are a bit hokey.” AIPT described it as “a brotherly love/hate vibing crime-caper hit up with a side of slapstick-comedy on the neon soaked streets of Seoul.”

The trade paperback collects the complete six-issue series and arrives at comic shops November 11, with bookstores following December 8.

This is exactly the kind of high-concept storytelling that proves comics can do anything.