NYCC 2025: Image Comics, Jeff Lemire And Dustin Nguyen Announce Dark Sci-Fi Fantasy ‘Crowbound’
by Olly MacNamee
Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen (co-creators of Descender, Ascender, and Little Monsters) are re-teaming for an all-new ongoing series, Crowbound. This dark fantasy epic was announced Thursday night at New York Comic Con and at a packed-out Lunar Distribution retailer event.
Here’s the lowdown on the story:
“At thirteen, every child begins their life inside The Factory—a vast, monolithic superstructure that cleaves the world in two—pulling levers, pushing buttons, and never knowing why. But Ava is a beautiful girl and the sinister Factory Men decide hers will be a fate of “special service” up the coast. Left reeling from their violent separation, her mother, Rose, embarks on a desperate rescue attempt when she strikes an uncertain bargain with the eerie, otherworldly Scarecrow Queen…
Fueled by fury, grief, and an undying love, Rose sets out on a nightmarish journey across the lowlands—a haunted, post-apocalyptic dreamscape crawling with strange creatures, forgotten gods, and the twisted remains of the old world—to find her daughter at any cost.
Crowbound is a blood-soaked fairytale, steeped in Southern Gothic dread and Neo-Western grit, where one woman’s hope flickers fiercely against the encroaching shadows.”
Speaking of their latest collaboration, Lemire said:
“Crowbound has been a project Dustin and I have been developing for several years, and we are incredibly excited to finally unleash it. This is our next major collaboration, something huge in scope like Descender was, but this story will also break uncharted territory for us creatively. If Descender was a sprawling space opera, then Crowbound is a sprawling dark fantasy revenge saga filled with heart, emotion, and rage, all rendered in the way only Dustin Nguyen can.”
Nguyen added:
“Not only am I excited to explore this entirely new world with Jeff, but also excited to discover entirely new ways to tell stories and an exciting new direction for my art on this next book as well- this happens every time I collaborate with Jeff.”
