IDW has announced a new five-part Spike mini-series based on the popular character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Screenwriter Brian Lynch (Big Helium Dog, Monkey Man), who approaches the project as if he were doing a full-on, big-budget Spike summer movie, is writing the Spike: Asylum series, with stylish Italian artist Franco Urru illustrating. 

Spike: Asylum, in which Spike must check himself into a rehab facility for vampires, demons, and other spectral creatures in order to find a missing girl, is the first of three new projects based on characters created by Joss Whedon that IDW will announce this month.