Tom King & Elsa Charretier’s Love Everlasting at Image, For Money

What could be better than reading Love Everlasting, the creator-owned series by Tom King and Elsa Charretier, for free on Substack? How about paying to read it in analog form from Image Comics? Okay, you know what, we may not have thought that one fully through, but it’s too late to back out of this press release now. Image will publish the webcomic by King and Charretier in August, the company announced in a press release. Well, kind of. First, they gave the press release to ComicBook.com to entice them to stop writing about chicken wings for a minute and write about comics instead. Then they plugged it as an “exclusive scoop” in the press release they sent to other sites. That’s entertainment (and chicken) journalism for you today, folks.

In Love Everlasting, Joan Peterson discovers that she is trapped in an endless, terrifying cycle of “romance”—a problem to be solved, a man to marry—and every time she falls in love she’s torn from her world and thrust into another teary saga. Her bloody journey to freedom and revelation starts in this breathtaking, groundbreaking first issue.

You can literally read that first issue for free right now, but if you feel like you really want to hold Love Everlasting in your hands, to caress it, to make sweet, sweet everlasting love to it, well then you’ll have to wait for Image’s version to hit stores (or risk seriously damaging your iPad).  King describes the project as “an epic exploration of the entire history of storytelling, of how myths and tales of love haunt us, enthrall us, imprison us, and perhaps, occasionally, free us,” which just happens to be one of the Five Essential Comic Book Pitches Every Creator Needs If They Want to Land an Image Series About One of the Five Things Image Publishes Series About, along with “gods living in the world of humans,” “music as a superpower,” “dragon men with insatiable lust,” and “the future, but it’s bad.” So you know this is going to be good.

Or is good. Technically, the comic is already out. Again, you can read it right here for free.

But you know one thing the Image version has that the free Substack version doesn’t (probably — we’re not gonna research it)? That’s right… a crapload of variant covers!

Love Everlasting #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, August 10:

• Cover A by Charretier – Diamond Code JUN220024
• Cover B by Clay Mann – Diamond Code JUN220025
• Cover C by Charretier – Diamond Code JUN220026
• Cover D by Tula Lotay – Diamond Code JUN220027
• Cover E by Jenny Frison – Diamond Code JUN220028
• Cover F (1:10 copy incentive) by Leslie Hung – Diamond Code JUN220029
• Cover G (1:25 copy incentive) by Matias Bergara – Diamond Code JUN220030
• Cover H (1:50 copy incentive) by Mitch Gerads – Diamond Code JUN220031
• Cover I (1:100 copy incentive) by Mann – Diamond Code JUN220032

Love Everlasting #1 will also be available for purchase across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

We swear to god, readers, if you pay for a digital copy of a print comic that is originally available as a free digital comic, we’re never speaking to you again.