IDW Publishing To Bring Back Jon Sable, Freelance
Mike Grell's extremely popular mercenary comic book hero, Jon Sable, Freelance, has accepted a new assignment. Jon Sable will return in a new six-part miniseries written and drawn by Grell as well as in quarterly collections of his 1980s adventuresJon Sable is a professional soldier-for-hire who lives a double life, writing children's books under an assumed name by day and serving as a deadly freelance merc by night. The series, originally published by First Comics, ran 56 issues before being relaunched by different creators and even saw brief life as an ABC-TV series co-starring Rene Russo.
The albums will collect all 56 issues of First's
Jon Sable, Freelance series written and drawn by Grell. These issues contained Sable's origin and introduced fan-favorite cat burglar, Maggie the Cat, among many other ripped-from-the-headlines adventures. The first trade paperback will include new art, introductions and behind-the-scenes material.
Jon Sable, Freelance follows on the heels of a similar announcement by IDW regarding the return of another popular First Comics character,
GrimJack. The release schedule of these books will be similar to GrimJack. In March, IDW will release the first collection of Jon Sable's '80s adventures in trade paperback and limited edition hardcover volumes. Subsequent volumes will be released quarterly. March will also see the release of the first all-new Jon Sable adventure written and drawn by Mike Grell in well over a decade.
Jon Sable, Freelance: Conspiracy! will be released monthly and run for six issues.
"I'm very excited to be working on this new miniseries with my old pal Mike Gold and with my new buddies at IDW. Not only is Jon Sable my favorite among all the characters I've ever created, he's also the right kind of hero for today's world -- less than perfect but doing his best, willing to face any danger for what's right, and absolutely relentless when he's on the hunt," Grell said. "This new story has been building for almost a decade, and is as vital as tomorrow's headlines."
"It's really great to be teaming up with Mike Grell once again," said Mike Gold, his long-time editor on
Jon Sable, Freelance, The Warlord, Green Arrow, and
Shaman's Tears. "We've been kicking around plots for a long time - in some ways, we've never really stopped working on Jon Sable. He was created as a character for our times today, and we've got a story that truly kicks butt. And working with Ted, Beau and Chris at IDW on
GrimJack has been my ultimate publishing experience - I'm extremely happy that ArrogantMGMS and I are working with these folks on Jon Sable. It's really a perfect match."
"Like many of the great First Comics properties, Jon Sable's been away from comics for far too long," added IDW's editor-in-chief, Chris Ryall. "There is an entire generation of comics fans that haven't had the chance to see just how good this character is, and I'm happy to be working with the two Mikes on changing that."
Jon Sable, Freelance: Conspiracy #1 is a full-color, 32-page comic book on sale in March 2005, with a retail price of $3.99. Mike Grell's
Jon Sable, Freelance, Volume #1 will be on sale in March 2005 as a $19.99 trade paperback and $39.99 limited-edition hardcover.
Jon Sable, Freelance is copyright and trademark 2004 Nightsky Sable LLC, All Rights Reserved.
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