Image, which is celebrating its 25th Anniversary year with a different variant theme each month, will release the variants in March to coincide with Women’s History Month.
“Many of Image Comics’ staff - myself included - and an ever-growing catalog of some of the most talented writers and artists in the industry, feel strongly about supporting women’s reproductive rights,” said Corey Murphy, Director of Sales at Image Comics. “I’m extremely proud to be a part of a company that’s unafraid to take a stance in supporting a non-profit that’s recently been under fire.”
The variants will be out on the following dates:
March 1:
Rat Queens #1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe & Owen Gieni, variant by Colleen Doran
Royal City #1 by Jeff Lemire, variant by Emi Lenox
March 8:
The Wicked + The Divine #27 by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie, variant by Chynna Clugston-Flores
Motor Crush #4 by Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart & Babs Tarr, variant by Leslie Hung
East Of West #32 by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Dragotta, variant by Meredith McClaren
Low #16 by Rick Remender & Greg Tocchini, variant by Vanesa R. Del Rey
March 15:
Moonshine #6 by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso, variant by Jill Thompson
March 22:
She Wolf #7 by Rich Tommaso, variant by Marian Churchland
Magdalena #1 by Tini Howard, Ryan Cady & Christian Dibari, variant by Roberta Ingranata
March 29:
Monstress #11 by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda, variant by Sanya Anwar
Old Guard #2 by Greg Rucka & Leandro Fernandez, variant by Nicola Scott
Not everyone is happy with Image’s move and a perceived increase in the depiction of contemporary political issues in comics. In a letter provided to Bleeding Cool, Phil Boyle of Coliseum of Comics demanded that publishers stop getting political: “Get your politics off my stands. Get political figures off the covers. Get poorly disguised villains out of your books.”
View the variant covers in the gallery below.