The bestselling three-issue comic book series by writer Sean Lewis and artist Jonathan Marks Barravecchia will be published in trade paperback format
Bestselling epic fantasy miniseries Bear Pirate Viking Queen, by award-winning storyteller Sean Lewis (King Spawn, Thumbs) and talented newcomer artist Jonathan Marks Barravecchia, will be fully collected in a new trade paperback, hitting shelves in August from Image Comics.
The epic fantasy is a tale of the sea, of Pirates, Vikings, Queens, and bears, warring with each other and trying to assert dominance over the past and future of the world. Beautiful, poignant, and daring—readers embark on the adventure of a lifetime with a story by masterful writer Lewis and with mind-blowing hand-painted watercolor art by Barravecchia, resulting in a book unlike anything you’ve read. The first issue, a breakout hit, immediately sold-out at the distributor level and was rushed back for a second printing. Fans will now have the ability to read the whole series from start to finish in a brand new volume.
“At this point in my career my goal has been to make books where each one is a swing at the canon of books I worshipped as a kid. From this source of inspiration, I wanted to make a book that was undeniably beautiful, full of myth and depth, that was unlike anything I had seen or done before,” said Lewis. “This book is our shot across the water at everything we’ve ever loved about the comic book and graphic novel form, and we’re so excited to be able to share the full story with readers.”
“I’m thrilled to have Bear Pirate Viking Queen collected and presented as a trade. Sean and I made exactly the comic that we wanted to make with these issues—and to have that comic be a painted, meditative, meandering story about human nature is not without risk,” said Barravecchia. “To have such a positive response to the series has been amazing. We wanted to create a story that is as equally rewarding to read as individual issues as it is all collected, and I can’t wait to share this version with the world.”
The Bear Pirate Viking Queen trade paperback (ISBN: 978-1-5343-8261-9, Lunar Code 0624IM264) will be available at local comic book shops on Wednesday, August 21 and independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Indigo, and Waterstones on Tuesday, September 3.
Bear Pirate Viking Queen will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
Select praise for Bear Pirate Viking Queen:
“Nothing but thunderous, chaotic creativity.”
—Monkeys Fighting Robots
“Dreamy and impressionistic, but with all the rousing adventure you’d expect from a story teeming with pirates, a ghostly Viking ship and, oh yeah, a bear.”
—Jess Walter, National Book Award Finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Beautiful Ruins
“The thing to really hook you is the art which is some of the best
on the shelves right now.”—Graphic Policy
“Unlike anything that you’ve seen on the stands today. A story that moves unexpectedly, like the tides that it takes place on. A dark storm of adventure across a horizon filled with pirates and mysticism. A book worth your time and coin!”
—Jeremy Adams, Flash One Minute War, Green Lantern
“A glorious fever dream, thumbing its nose at every expectation with its languid, liquid, lethal fusion of history, hallucination and horror. A unique and
irresistible book.”—Si Spurrier, DC’s The Flash, Boom’s Coda
“Hauntingly beautiful, this mystery of a tortured man and the demons he encounters dives deep and pulled me into its emotional waves.”
—Cecil Castellucci, author of Boy Proof, Grandma’s Gloves, Odd Duck
“A beautifully-illustrated, hallucinatory voyage across dark and dangerous waters. It’s Pirates of the Caribbean as directed by Ingmar Bergman.”
—J.M. DeMatteis, Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams, The DeMultiverse
ABOUT SEAN LEWIS
Sean Lewis is the co-creator and writer of Image Comics’ Saints, The Few, and Coyotes. His plays have won the Kennedy Center’s Rosa Parks Award, the National New Play Network’s Smith Prize, the Barrymore Award, the William Inge Fellowship, and more. His work has screened at the TriBeCa Film Festival and has been heard on NPR’S This American Life.
ABOUT JONATHAN MARKS BARRAVECCHIA
Jonathan Marks Barravecchia is an artist originally from Richmond, VA who works primarily in book and comic book illustration. In addition to his fully painted self-published comics, he has worked with publishers including Marvel and DC Comics, Legendary Comics, IDW, and BOOM!, as well as book publishers such as Centipede Press and Easton Press. His work has been featured in annual juried ‘best of’ publications including American Illustration and Spectrum, and he currently shows at the Philippe LaBaune Gallery in Chelsea, NY. Jonathan Lives in NY with his amazing wife and daughter, and he’s just now realized that this is the first time he’s written a bio where he can include that line about having a daughter. Bear Pirate Viking Queen is his first book with Image Comics.