Image to publish Jeff Lemire’s ‘Royal City’

New comic written and drawn by Lemire comes out next March.

As noted on his blog, Jeff Lemire will write AND draw his first comic since 2013’s Trillium. Royal City, a new ongoing published by Image Comics, follows “a fading literary star who reluctantly returns to the once-thriving factory town where he grew up,” and has to deal with overbearing family, the vanishing town and the “ghosts” of his younger brother, who drowned decades prior.

“I have a two-season plan, about 20 issues of the comic, that will tell one decisive story about the Pike family,” Lemire told Entertainment Weekly. “But the idea of returning to this family of characters at different points in my life is really exciting to me. I think it could be something that I return to — an umbrella where I could tell other stories.”

The first issue is due out next March.

RoyalCity Promo Image

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Lemire’s ‘Roughneck’ skates into stores in 2017

Lemire returns to small-town Canada for a new graphic novel from Simon & Schuster.

The prolific Jeff Lemire, who has left his stamp on monthly comics from DC, Marvel, Image and Valiant in recent years, returns to his graphic novel roots in October with Roughneck.

Update: According to Lemire’s blog, Roughnecks will now arrive in April 2017.

Originally announced in 2013, the graphic novel is written and drawn by Lemire. Like his Essex County series, this one is also set in small town Canada. Here’s how Simon & Schuster described the project back in 2013:

“Derek is a former hockey tough guy whose quick rise to the NHL was cut short when a brutal on-ice incident left him banned from professional hockey for life. Now, four years later, Derek has returned to Black River, his hometown in Northern Ontario, not far from the Moose Cree First Nation, where his mother grew up. Derek’s slide into alcoholism and depression is interrupted when his long-lost sister, Annie, returns home trailing a violent ex-boyfriend. Together, the two escape to the woods, where they struggle to reconnect with the traditions of their Cree ancestors in order to escape their past and gain redemption.”

This is definitely something to add to the “Comics I’m looking forward to” list for 2016.

RN PROMO