Astro City and more Kurt Busiek stories find a new home where it started: Image Comics

Comics writer Kurt Busiek is bringing almost all of his creator-owned work for the past 25 years to Image Comics; for some, it's a return, and for others, it's long out-of-print comics getting a new life.

Image Comics has announced that five creator-owned Kurt Busiek series - Astro City (with Brent Anderson and others), Arrowsmith (with Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino), The Wizard's Tale (with David Thorn Wenzel), along with both Shockrockets and Superstar: As Seen on TV (with Stuart Immonen and Wade von Grawbadger) - will all be released digitally this August through Image Comics.

"I'm thrilled to be consolidating my creator-owned books at Image," Busiek says with the announcement. "Readers have been asking us to make these stories available again, so we're glad to have them all together at last, and in great company with the rest of the Image line."

Both Astro city and Arrowsmith were previously published by DC, while the others were published by Image Comics - through the now-defunct imprint Gorilla Comics - around the turn of the century.

Superstar: As Seen on TV — (Image credit: Stuart Immonen (Image Comics))

And while these books will now become available digitally on August 4, the announcement doesn't specify that the series will be reprinted physically anytime soon. Busiek says that this digital announcement is just the start of what's to come - including new stories for some of the projects.

"This is just the beginning, too - there'll be new material coming as well, but that'll be another announcement for another day."

Astro City is the most iconic of these series, and after its DC run ended in 2018 there were announced plans for it to transition to be a series of original graphic novels. Back in September, Busiek told Newsarama he had "a bunch of other stuff in the works" but there had been delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Originally launched at Image in 1995, Astro City follows the superheroes, supervillains, and regular civilians who live in and around the fictional metropolis of Astro City. In the past 25 years, over 100 issues have been released.

These five titles come to Image Comics and join Busiek's most recent creator-owned series, The Autumnlands: Tooth and Claw with Ben Dewey.

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Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)