Waid & Kitson’s ‘Empire’ Returns To Print From IDW Publishing

Mark Waid and Barry Kitson's Empire  has had a pretty strange publication history. First there were two issues through the short-lived Gorilla Comics imprint at Image, then those later became the #0 issue of a seven-issue series from DC, and just last year, the story of a world where the ultimate supervillain actually succeeded in taking over the world was reborn as a webcomic at Thrillbent, Waid's webcomics concern, with new pages going up weekly.

This week, however, IDW Publishing announced that the series was returning to the printed page. As the first part of a partnership between IDW and Thrillbent, Empire: Uprising will collect the digital chapters as a monthly series starting in April.

Empire: Uprising will be joined by a new printing of the original series in paperback. The partnership continues into the future, with the next project being a collection of Waid and Peter Krause's Insufferable in May.

If, however, you can't wait a few months to find out what happens next in the story of Golgoth and his iron-fisted rule over the world, you can always check the series out digitally. The continuing Empire webcomic is behind a paywall, but for four bucks a month, you also get to download a DRM-free PDF version of the original series to get all caught up. Which, for the record, is something you should definitely do. Empire features some of Kitson's best designs, and while a story where the villains have already won always raises the question of just who you can root for, the level of intrigue that the book crafts over the course of its run makes it well worth reading even with a cast of pretty dedicated scumbags.

Here's to hoping this is a sign of more Empire on the way!