Image Comics has gone back to the future for its new Viking comic book series by Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein, which will be published in slightly oversize “Golden Age” dimensions and features heavy textured paper that gives the book real heft.  Image’s PR and Marketing Coordinator Joe Keatinge told ICv2 that Image also plans to publish its Next Issue Project #1: Fantastic Comics #24 in the same deluxe format.

Viking’s format is not its only unique aspect.  Writer Ivan Brandon has skillfully blended genres, mixing a berserker-like historical Viking adventure with the structure and internal dynamics of a crime comic as two brothers make their way up the ladder of the Norse criminal underground. 

Keatinge brought a copy of the first issue of Viking to the recent Comics PRO meeting in Memphis where the book generated enough buzz that it quickly sold out a substantial overrun well in advance of its April 22nd publication.  Image is going back to press with a second printing featuring a variant cover with a “slightly tweaked” version of Klein’s original cover.