Robert Kirkman posted a video to his new YouTube channel last week to reveal a “confusing” find at the printer — a palette of Solid Blood #17, a comic by Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn and Rus Wooten. And low and behold, the comic is on this week’s list of comics coming out from Diamond, despite the fact that it was never announced nor solicited.
You can watch the video below:
So where did this mystery comic come from? Kirkman plays coy in the video — and does a nice job of staying in character through the whole thing — but comic fans know this isn’t the first time Kirkman and Skybound have done something like this. Back in 2018 they stealth-launched Die!Die!Die!, while 2019 brought the surprise ending of The Walking Dead (even after future issues had already been solicited).
So Kirkman likes to have fun in the direct market, in the interest of creating excitement — and sometimes headaches for retailers. Ottley, who worked with Kirkman on Invincible, is exclusive to Marvel now, having just finished a run on Amazing Spider-Man. He did play along on Twitter:
Will we see future issues of this series, or the previous ones? Time will tell. I just hope it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.