There's a mountain of comic book projects that were solicited, advertised and told that never saw the light of day, and now we have one more lost treasure to add to that list: a Final Fantasy series by Kurt Busiek, Del Barras and Mike Mignola.

Commissioned by the defunct Disney imprint Hollywood Comics, the story was to be a four-issue adaptation of the video game Final Fantasy IV (released in 1991 in North America as Final Fantasy II). Busiek got the job by pitching an original story set in the Final Fantasy universe, with publisher Square (now Square Enix) then shifting him over to the adaptation of the then-forthcoming video game.

Busiek has said he wrote the script for all four issues, with at least two issues penciled by Barras and all four covers completed by Mignola. Hollywood Comics shuttered in 1993, and the comic has never been released.

Here's the advertisement for the Final Fantasy series, which appeared in various Hollywood Comics titles in 1992, as well as Mignola's original art for two of the covers.







(hat tip to Thaddeus R R Boyd)