Archaia tells ComicsAlliance that David Petersen's multi-award winning Mouse Guard will return with a third volume of Legends of the Guard. The anthology project invites some of comics’ most talented creators to tell stories set throughout Petersen’s endlessly charming, frequently funny and always harrowing mediaval world of mice.

Launching in March 2015, the book celebrates the tenth anniversary of Mouse Guard with new work by Petersen and such impressive talents as Skottie Young (Rocket Raccoon), Ramón K. Pérez (Tale Of Sand), Dustin Nguyen (Li'l Gotham), Becky Cloonan (Gotham Academy), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Hannah Christenson (Jim Henson's The Storyteller) and Humberto Ramos (Amazing Spider-Man), with more yet to be announced.

Written and lavishly illustrated by Petersen, Mouse Guard follows the adventures of an elite association of mice sworn to protect a kind of mouse kingdom from threats both foreign — like weasels, snakes, and other predators — and domestic — like traitors. Petersen’s main story, which is published in the form of miniseries later collected in hardcovers, has won numerous awards. Reading it is both like a breath of fresh air and a thrilling experience, and in a way some of us haven't felt since we were young readers.

To sate readers’ appetites between volumes, Petersen and Archaia created Legends of the Guard, the first series of which won the Eisner Award for Best Anthology, and the second a nomination for the same. The series uses a framing mechanism whereby mice gather at the June Alley inn and tell the best story of courage and adventure in pursuit of the prize of having their bar tab wiped clean. Previous contributors have included Eric Canete, Stan Sakai Rick Geary, Bill Willingham, Ben Caldwell, Jemma Salume, C.P. Wilson III, Ted Naifeh, Terry Moore, Gene Ha, Katie Cook and Craig Rousseau, making Legends of the Guard one of the most creatively auspicious anthologies around these days.

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