Writer Ed Brubaker and artist Marcos Martin just surprise released a new ongoing comic series called Friday via the digital comics platform Panel Syndicate.

The book is available now (yes, right now) online through Panel Syndicate’s usual name-your-price purchase system. In the new comic, which spans 30 pages, Martin’s artwork is colored by regular collaborator Munsta Vicente.

The tagline for the book reads as follows:

Friday Fitzhugh spent her childhood solving crimes and digging up occult secrets with her best friend Lancelot Jones, the smartest boy in the world. But that was the past, now she’s in college, starting a new life on her own. Except when Friday comes home for the holidays, she’s immediately pulled back into Lance’s orbit and finds that something very strange and dangerous is happening in their little New England town…

This is literally the Christmas vacation from Hell and neither of them may survive to see the New Year.

Panel Syndicate first teased the existence of Friday on Tuesday, noting that “This week, Friday is on a Wednesday.” Putting us all at risk of spontaneous Abbott and Costello-esque misunderstandings. The AV Club had the exclusive announcement on this one earlier today, and there is no indication just yet when we can expect the next issue.

But how good does it feel to have new comics again? As readers of this site are surely aware, today marks the third consecutive Wednesday that new physical releases are largely nonexistent and new digital releases are curtailed to the point of near-irrelevance, owing of course to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Panel Syndicate, of course, is not beholden to usual distribution, having in the past released new material first on its digital platform, before issuing physical editions much much later (if at all).

A surprise release today — and one with a creative team of this caliber, too — is a very welcomed thing, indeed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read Friday on a Wednesday after being excited about it since it was first teased on Tuesday.

Friday