The X-Files Season 10 #2 is coming out tomorrow!
Art by Michael Walsh
As with every issue, Comic Book Resources has published a 7-page preview (which corresponds to about a third of the length of the issue!…). A season 8-9 character makes a painful return, and it’s been months we have been teased with the return of the Lone Gunmen. Will they be ghosts like in 9X19/20: The Truth? Will they have faked their deaths, as Dean Haglund has been saying for years? Will they be zombies?
#2 cover gallery previously posted in EatTheCorn here.
As with every month over three months before publication date, IDW Publishing releases its solicitations, for comic book buyers to place their pre-orders and for comic book makers to better assess their print volumes. The program is out for October 2013, and The X-Files Season 10 #5 is out; beware of spoilers below!
S10 #5 cover by Carlos Valenzuela
The X-Files: Season 10 #5
Joe Harris (w) • Michael Walsh (a) • Carlos Valenzuela (c)
“Believers,” Part 5 of 5: The sense-shattering conclusion! Reunited at last, Mulder and Scully pursue the Deacon deep beneath the surface of Yellowstone National Park. Also in pursuit are the telltale black helicopters of the FBI, but are they friend… or foe?
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
The first translated edition for Season 10 is known: it will be in German! The edition will collect the first five issues (128 pages), i.e. the whole of the first story arc, Believers, and is announced for December 2013. This will also be the first collected volume of Season 10 to be published: for the time being, no word yet from IDW on a first trade paperback (TPB) and how many issues it would collect. Previous IDW collections gather 4 issues, Believers is 5 issues, most comics TPBs gather 6 issues. (Thanks to Thomas!)
Edit: Thanks to the super powers of Twitter, we know that the IDW collections will be hardcovers for every 5 issues, with collected “Believers” coming in December 2013. (Thanks to S10 editor Denton J. Tipton!)
Michael Walsh has continued teasing with art from the upcoming issues, with an old lady who will probably be appearing somewhere around issue #4. As per twitter (amazing how much you can find!), he finished #4 on July 12!
“Edith. X-Files inking.” (July 9 2013)
So what’s coming after the mythology-filled Believers? menton3 has posted his cover art for issue #6. My take on the title? “Invasion of the Mutant Fluke Men!”
For those interested in numbers, Bleeding Cool announced the comic books sales for June 2013 and issue #1 is barely at number 94 — however consider that it came out late in June (on the 19th), that it exceeded IDW’s expectations as a second printing was necessary, that it’s IDW’s third best-selling title (after My Little Pony!…), and that digital sales are not included (which should be important given that X-philes are a quite international group).
On July 10, IDW also started publishing its “X-Files Classics” in hardcover, which collect the old Topps Comics. Volume 1 collects the first 9 issues of the monthly comic, in my opinion among the best issues of the entire XF comics run, by Stefan Petrucha & Charlie Adlard. More on this later; in the meantime, read more about pre-S10 XF comics on EatTheCorn here!
The other big event is the Mecca of popular culture, crowd madness and consumerist marketing, the 2013 San Diego Comic Con, in which several events celebrate the X-Files’ 20th anniversary and the publication of Season 10!
Los Angeles-based X-Files News has collected all the XF-related events in one nice post here. Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Comic Book Resources, Joe Harris and Chris Ryall (IDW) have also posted. The biggest event is TV Guide’s panel, with the biggest cast & crew reunion since the Paley Festival in 2008 right before the release of I Want To Believe, and as it seems it will be the biggest event related to the 20th anniversary of the series! I still hope FOX will announce in September a BluRay release, but don’t hold your breath about anything related to an X-Files 3. Interesting that Carter will be joining the IDW panel for promoting Season 10, which shows his good faith in the project. Expect a host of SDCC-related news in all pop culture sites this week!