W0RLDTR33 #1 Exclusive Cover Reveal, Introducing Your Favorite New Character of 2023

So, back in November, Fernando Blanco and I surprise announced our new Image Comics series. We ran a short in the IMAGE! anthology series in issue #8, which serves as a prologue to the story we’re setting out to tell. But we’ve been holding back the big push for this series until it was time to solicit the dang thing. And that time is now. W0RLDTR33 #1 will go out with the Image Solicits later this week.

W0RLDTR33 is a new ongoing horror series. I mentioned in a newsletter a long time ago about wanting to write a long-form horror novel in comic book form. When I said that, this was the book I was thinking about.

Thematically, I’d say it’s the cousin of one of my older horror comics, MEMETIC. That was a story about a meme spreading online that ends the world in three days, told over three issues. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the internet is doing to all of us, how it’s changing us, what lives at its dark heart, and what we’ll look like as a society at the end of that process. I don’t know that there’s anything that scares me more than that.

There are sequences in W0RLDTR33 that have been living in my head for years. Back in the summer of 2018, I started laying out plans for several comic books in the creator owned space. SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN, WYND, THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE… and this was the last of them. W0RLDTR33. Until now it’s felt like the missing piece of that constellation of books that came from a storm of creativity that I think has produced the best work of my career.

It’s the first long-form horror comic launch from me since THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE launched in June 2021. I’m partnering with the phenomenal Fernando Blanco, who I had the pleasure of working with a few times over the course of my DC Superhero career and whose work you probably know best from CATWOMAN or the HOUSE OF GOTHAM back-ups from Detective Comics last year. He’s a next level artist, who I have been talking about working with on something big for a very long time. The work he’s doing in the book is spectacular and I can’t wait for you to see it. Fernando and I are joined by the phenomenal Jordie Bellaire on colors, and the amazing Aditya Bidikar on letters. The series is being edited by my Department of Truth and Razorblades partner-in-crime, Steve Foxe. Logo and series design by the always phenomenal Dylan Todd.

Now… Let’s take a look at the phenomenal cover to Issue #1

I love this cover. It’s so brutal, and it absolutely captures the strange feeling Fernando and I wanted to capture to give everybody their first taste of the series. It feels like a perfect compliment to a bunch of iconic first issue covers we’ve released over my last generation of first issues. But I am sure you are asking yourself, “who is that scary naked lady?!” I’m so glad you asked.

I am very excited to introduce you to the mysterious and terrifying PH34R. She has come from the internet to kill you. And the rest of us. I think she’s the most frightening character I’ve ever written.

PH34R is the antagonist of our techno-horror series, and she is going to kill a LOT of people in this book.

W0RLDTR33 #1
Story by James Tynion IV
Art by Fernando Blanco & Jordie Bellaire
Cover A: Fernando Blanco
Cover B: David Aja
Cover C (1:10): Jenny Frison
Cover D (1:25): Bill Sienkiewicz
Cover E (1:50): Zu Orzu
Cover F (1:100): Alvaro Martinez Bueno

In 1999, Gabriel and his friends discovered the Undernet, a secret architecture to the Internet. They charted their exploration on a message board called W0RLDTR33. Then they lost control. Someone broke into W0RLDTR33—someone who welcomed the violent hold the Undernet had on them. At great personal cost, Gabriel and the others thought they sealed the Undernet away for good.

They were wrong. And now they will know the meaning of PH34R.

The next major horror outing from multiple Eisner Award-winning writer JAMES TYNION IV (THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, The Nice House on the Lake) and FERNANDO BLANCO (Detective Comics), along with Eisner-winning colorist JORDIE BELLAIRE and Eisner-nominated letterer ADITYA BIDIKAR, begins here!

April 12 / 32 Pages / FC / M / $3.99

The series will be open to retailer exclusive covers. There are going to be pretty firm rules about how you can depict PH34R on those covers, but the rules will be clear. You can reach out to Image Comics if you’re interested in lining one up.

Over the next few months, in the lead-up to the series FOC in March, I’ll do a few more posts revealing some of the phenomenal covers we’ve got lined up for the comic, and previewing a bit more of what the book is going to look like on the inside. Our big promotional push will come in the final drumbeat before the Final Order Cut-Off, and there is a LOT more to talk about when it comes to this book. But for right now, I just want to whet your appetite for some of the best horror I think I’ve ever written.

Much more to come, but it’s never too soon to tell your LCS to put this on your pull list.

While we’re at it, I just want to remind you all that BLUE BOOK #1, the “True Weird” series from me and Michael Avon Oeming has its FOC this Monday, January 23! I did a big write-up going into why you should order the book on Tuesday, and you should go read my hard sell. But here’s the cover to #1 again!

Also reminding folks that I am traveling to France for Angouleme next week! I’ve got my signing schedule which I’m posting again below…

Now, back to my writing cave so I can finish this issue of a comic book that hasn’t been announced yet, and won’t be until much later in the year! The Empire of the Tiny Onion marches ever forward! Can’t wait to see some of you in France!

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
1.19.23