Out of the many projects previewed at the Image Comics SDCC panel, Gary Whitta and Darick Robertson’s Oliver seems to have caught the most attention.
The book, essentially a steampunk take on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, tells the story of a future government granting second class citizen status to an army of clones they created to help them fight a war. One clone, the titular Oliver, is half human; therefore he has special hybrid abilities. The book follows him on his journey of self-discovery. For more information on the series, be sure to visit CBR and read the interview they conducted with Whitta and Robertson. Oliver is expected to be released in next summer.
Several other potentially great titles were discussed in brief at the panel. Outside of Oliver, the ones that piqued my interest were: Greg Rucka and Michael Lark’s Lazarus (“The Godfather meets Children of Men”), James Robinson and J Bone’s The Saviours (Old Fashioned Alien Invasion) and Chris Roberson’s Rain (“a giant sprawling, epic fantasy, secondary world kind of thing.”).
Looks like 2012-2013 will be a great year for Image. Let us know if anything else at the panel gets you excited.