Dave Sim’s Cerebus isn’t the only classic creator-owned comic that looks to be headed back to print in the near future.
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ComicBook.com has learned exclusively that Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo’s fan-favorite Image Comics series Tellos will return soon, as an original graphic novel paying tribute to Wieringo, who passed away in 2007.
The smart money seems to be on the book becoming a reality in 2017, ten years after “Ringo” passed away.
“We’ve all been sworn to secrecy,” said one artist who wishes to remain anonymous. “Everyone is contributing a few pages and when it’s all done, all the money will go to the Humane Society or the ASPCA, I can’t remember which one.”
When Wieringo passed away, his family similarly asked for donations to animal-welfare charities in lieu of flowers.
In his too-short career, Wieringo provided fans with memorable runs on The Flash, Superman, Robin, and the Fantastic Four, much of which remains in print years later. It was his pairing with writer Dezago on Sensational Spider-Man that led to their creator-owned Tellos, the fantasy-adventure that the two published through Image Comics.
The series centered on a young protagonist named Jarek, his genie, and his anthropomorphic tiger companion Koj. The heroes strive to unravel the mystery behind Jarek’s origin and escape the attentions of a mad boy-wizard named Malesur who is seemingly bent on Jarek’s destruction. Along the way, they hook up with the likes of a pirate named Serra, a fox thief named Rikk (many of the characters were anthropomorphic, not just Koj), a dragon named Brad, and many more colorful characters.
Besides the original 10-issue run by Dezago and Wieringo, the world of Tellos existed in a three-issue miniseries and a number of one-shots, with art by Wieringo and a number of other artists. Not long before he passed away, Wieringo had talked about working on new Tellos.
The comics industry suffered a great loss in the summer of 2007 when Wieringo died of a sudden heart attack. In 2008, a scholarship in Wieringo’s name was established and handed out at HeroesCon in Charlotte.
Now, almost nine years after Ringo’s untimely death, ComicBook.com is hearing word of a secret project that may be Dezago’s tribute to his late partner.
Apparently, Dezago has been working on the project for over a year, soliciting friends and fans of the late artist to produce a massive new graphic novel.
“It’s something like 300 pages long. [Dezago] keeps us posted with weekly e-mails previewing some of the pages and telling us how things are progressing. He’s got some big names on this. It’s going to be huge,” said the artist, saying that they didn’t want to say anymore because, “Todd will kill me.”
As somebody who has covered Dezago’s work on The Perhapanauts with Craig Rousseau extensively, I think it can be reasonably said that he wouldn’t kill anybody…but reached for comment on Tellos earlier this week, he hasn’t yet responded.
