With GØDLAND nearing its first anniversary and Joe Casey and Tom Scioli’s cosmic superhero series continuing to attract rave reviews, Image Comics has announced that a trade paperback collecting GØDLAND #7-12 will hit shelves in late July.
Written by Casey with art by Scioli, GØDLAND has received increasing critical acclaim following the release of the GØDLAND, VOL. 1: HELLO COSMIC! TP in January, attracting some of the most glowing reviews of any Image superhero titlle since INVINCIBLE. Despite rising initial orders, inclusion in Diamond’s overship program and a commitment to overprinting, the first three issues have sold out and inventory on later issues continues to dwindle at an ever-increasing rate, making the GØDLAND, VOL. 2: ANOTHER SUNNY DELIGHT TP the ideal companion piece to the first trade for new readers.
With lettering and fine design by Richard Starkings and Comicraft, each issue of GØDLAND is carefully-crafted to be a unique comics experience and the trade paperback collections are no different. And in addition to representing the six-issue story arc running through GØDLAND #7-12, GØDLAND, VOL. 2: ANOTHER SUNNY DELIGHT will also include the GØDLAND short from last year’s IMAGE COMICS HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
“That’s right: Another thick chapter of our cosmic superhero epic for all the ‘trade-waiters’ out there is about to be unleashed on the world,” exclaimed Casey. “The first trade is still selling well, so it’ll be nice to have another volume on the shelves. Some of my favorite comicbooks I’ve ever worked on are in this collection.”
And judging by the reaction from a recent polling of comics retailers, Joe’s far from the only one pleased with the series at this point:
“GØDLAND continues to impress,” said Rory Root of Berkeley’s Comic Relief. “Ongoing sales of the comic are nearly three times what we had at its launch. The GØDLAND collection is on our reorder list every week, and its sales have made it Comic Relief’s second best selling Image trade. A little Kirby love and skill can go a very long way.”
“GØDLAND is a book that people keep coming back for because every issue is packed with more WOW moments than your average pamphlet,” noted Carr D’Angelo of Los Angeles-based Earth-2 Comics. “The issues sell out regularly and the trade keeps flying off the shelves. There’s so much cosmic energy in this book, it might be flying on its own power. Joe Casey spins a jet-paced yarn that never stops moving and Tom Scioli draws pictures that are bigger than the comic you’re holding in your hands. Part Silver Age homage, part reinvention of the genre, GØDLAND rocks on all cylinders.”
Or as James Sime of San Francisco’s Isotope: The Comics Lounge so eloquently added: “Remember when comics were supposed to leave you bitter, unfulfilled and dreaming of the glory days again? Well, apparently Joe Casey, Tom Scioli and Image Comics didn’t get the memo, because what these folks are doing with GØDLAND is making people love comics all over again. Just what in the heck are these people thinking?
“As a retailer, I see people buying GØDLAND almost every single day and there is truly a huge variety of different kinds of customers who are hopelessly addicted to it. From the decades long comic readers who yearn for a time when comic books were filled with imagination and could transport you to another world, to jaded hipsters who hunger for something more emotionally meaningful in their entertainment, to fine art epicureans who seek abstract expressionism which defies traditional analysis in their sequential art, to die-hard superhero fans who long for something great that isn’t just a piece of the company wide summer crossover machine. GØDLAND seduces them all with it’s great writing, exciting characters, universal truths and those ever-present pychotropic Kirby crackles. And that can only be dangerous.
“While my cash register may love the effortless income a book like GØDLAND produces, I can’t help but be concerned about what such a cleverly intelligent, universally appealing, well-crafted and downright fun book might mean for future generations of bitter, unfulfilled comic readers.”
“Everyone on the GØDLAND team is doing the work of their careers on this book, from Starkings and Comicraft to our great colorist, Nick Filardi, to my cosmic co-conspirator, the mighty Tom Scioli himself,” Casey added. “Of course, I should also mention this trade paperback contains the secret origin of the universe… so it’s not only entertaining, it’s educational.”
GØDLAND, VOL. 2: ANOTHER SUNNY DELIGHT (MAY061725), a 160-page trade paperback with a cover price of $14.99, is available for order in the May issue of Previews with an in-store date of July 26. GØDLAND, VOL. 1: HELLO, COSMIC! (NOV051707) is available now.
