Image Comics has announced Newburn, a new crime series debuting this fall. The ongoing series, which follows a private detective with ties to organized crime, comes from writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Jacob Phillips.
Here’s how Image describes Newburn:
In Newburn, readers meet Easton Newburn, a private detective without loyalties investigating conflicts between rival crime factions while collecting enemies along the way. In this debut issue, a man is murdered after stealing from his own mafia family, but they aren’t the ones who ordered the hit…
The first issue of the new series will also include a backup story, titled “Brooklyn Zirconia,” from writer Nadia Shammas and artist Ziyed Yusuf Ayoub.
In an interview with CBR about the book, Zdarsky and Phillips both expressed their excitement at working together on the series:
“I love the satisfaction that comes from crime procedurals, so the chance to do that in comic form, while crafting a massive story about a fictional New York underworld, was something I couldn’t wait to do,” Zdarsky said. “And Jacob is the perfect artist for the book! His work is gritty and full of heart and he’s bringing it all to this book.”
“Newburn brings something fresh to crime comics that I’ve not seen before,” Phillips said. “Chip’s at the top of his game crafting these tight done-in-one stories which have been great fun to draw and even more fun to read. I can’t wait for people to see what we’ve been cooking up!”
Newburn is the first collaboration between Zdarsky and Phillips, and the latest Image Comics series for both creators. Zdarsky’s other Image work includes Stillwater with Ramón K. Pérez, while Phillips and writer Chris Condon‘s That Texas Blood is also ongoing with the publisher. On Twitter Phillips assured a worried fan that That Texas Blood “isn’t going anywhere.”
The news of a new Chip Zdarsky book at Image Comics comes a week after details of the cartoonist’s deal with Substack were revealed. It’s good to see that Zdarsky won’t be containing all of his creator-owned work to the paid subscription platform.
Check out a variant cover by Tula Lotay, as well as a handful of interior preview pages, for Newburn #1 below. Look for the first issue of the series to drop in November.
