With the surprise, sudden ending of Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's long-running, best-selling The Walking Dead, one of the most iconic Image Comics ever has come to a close. Fortunately, Image still boasts an ever-growing library of titles all owned by their respective creative teams, with plenty to choose from to more than fill the void left behind by the finished survival horror comic book series.
Now, here are some of the best recent and ongoing Image Comics comic book series worth checking out for anyone looking to start reading a new series after The Walking Dead.
Die
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Journey Into Mystery collaborators Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans reteamed for a new ongoing series, Die, a dark, role-playing fantasy story that launched in December. The comic series has a group of 40-something adults return to a role-playing game that traumatized them and nearly claimed their lives decades ago to face their fears one last time.
Since its debut, the series has been a runaway success, both critically and commercially. The first collection, Die: Fantasy Heartbreaker, collects the series first five issues, which sees the friends reunite years after the game that changed their lives for one last horrific game.
Saga
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Winner of a staggering 12 Eisner Awards and 17 Harvey Awards during its initial run, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga has thrilled fans since 2012 with its tale of star-crossed romance between its leads in a war-torn sci-fi/fantasy world.
When a young soldier falls in love with her prisoner and conceives a child with him, they become fugitives from both of their respective races, targeted by armies and bounty hunters alike while trying to protect their growing family. The first volume became the first trade paperback collection to win a Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story in 2013 and has continued to enthrall readers ever since.
Monstress
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For Monstress, creators Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda crafted an epic fantasy world inspired by early 20th century East Asia and blending a steampunk aesthetic with Japanese and Chinese folklore in creating its fantastical creatures and art style.
Debuting in 2015, the multiple Eisner Award-winning series takes place in a dictatorial matriarchal society led by sorcerers known as Cumaea at war with magical creatures that occasionally pass off as humans known as Arcanics. Maika Halfwolf is one such Arcanic, possessing a mysterious link to a powerfully ravenous monster.
Southern Bastards
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Jason Aaron and Jason Latour are both comic book creators born and raised in the American South and, for their Eisner Award-winning Image comic series Southern Bastards, they tapped into the contradictory feelings of being proud to be Southern and rejecting its more unsavory elements in the hard-gritting, deep-fried crime series.
The first volume, Southern Bastards: Here Was a Man, has Earl Tubb return to his middle-of-nowhere hometown in Craw County, Alabama only to discover it is run with a bloody, iron fist by the local high school football coach. Disheartened by what has become of his home, Earl decides to take his town back or die trying.
Oblivion Song
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Last year, The Walking Dead mastermind and Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici teamed up to launch the new series Oblivion Song through Kirkman's Image Comics imprint Skybound Entertainment. An overnight success, the series was acclaimed by readers and critics alike and was optioned last month to be adapted as a feature film produced by Universal and Skybound.
The first volume follows a world where 300,000 people in Philadelphia mysteriously were transported into another dimension known as Oblivion. As the world attempts to move on, a man named Nathan Cole ventures into the other realm to recover those trying to survive in the harsh, monster-filled environment and bring them back while searching for someone very close to him.
Deadly Class
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Perhaps the most punk rock book on the stands, Deadly Class by Rick Remender and Wes Craig is packed full of sex, drugs and rock and roll along with all the gratuitous violence that comes from setting a story in a private school for aspiring assassins and pits the characters against street gangs and Yakuza.
The first volume, Deadly Class: Reagan Youth, follows Marcus Lopez, an orphaned teenager living in the 1987. Marcus is recruited into Kings Dominion, an academy for assassins, with students from criminal organizations all over the world. While the comic's recent television adaptation was canceled after one season, the series still blends teen drama with plenty of blood-soaked mayhem.
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