That Texas Blood has been on a hiatus since December, giving fans of the Image Comics hit some time to gather themselves before launching a new story. That hiatus will soon come to the close with the title's first spin-off in the form of The Enfield Gang Massacre, a six-issue miniseries beginning to hit the shelves at your local comic store in August.
Just like the main series, The Enfield Gang Massacre is written by Christopher Condon and drawn by Jacob Phillips, and as the former tells us, it has always been the plan to to tell this in-universe story eventually.
"From the very first page of That Texas Blood issue one, we were tossing in images of locations and old newspapers, implying that there was a world beyond what our characters are dealing with in that single issue. We imply that these traumatic events have taken some sort of toll on our 70-year-old sheriff," Condon says. "From there, it was just about telling those stories. We weren't sure that Image would even want to go there with us, but luckily we're working with the best publisher in the business and they've had our backs since day one."
In Enfield, readers are teleported to 150 years in the past to examine the story of Montgomery Enfield and his gang of misfits as they cross paths with an aging Texas Ranger.
"I mean who doesn't love a western? I remember messaging Chris like 'Hey, these guys look cool, are we going to see more from them?!'" Phillips adds. "And now here we are over two years later and the first issue of The Enfield Gang Massacre is nearly here."
For those who've been keeping up with the series, it looks like Enfield might not be the only spin-off or splinter series in the works. Both Condon and Phillips say they're both interested in telling more Western tales.
"Like I said before, the only real limit to what we can do is whether I can draw it," Phillips continues. "Maybe I'll have to Mignola it and start bringing other artists in on these series and really flesh out the world. But also... I wanna draw them!"
Condon adds, "There's definitely more TTB in the pipeline – our next arc will be back next year and will focus on some characters we've met before (Teddy Kutner and Travis Terrill, for starters). Whether we'll go into more spinoffs? That remains to be seen. Back when arc two hit, we had a lot of folks asking if we'd be doing an Eversaul spinoff. We haven't been able to do that yet, but we'd like to get there at some point. I'd love to do a Kolchak/X-Files type series starring our 'weird' Iowan private eye."
We've got your exclusive first look at The Enfield Gang Massacre #1, due out on August 9th—keep scrolling to check it out!