Sean Gordon Murphy Reunites With Blake Northcott for The North Valley Grimoire Whatnot Cover (Exclusive)

March 21, 2023, 3:14pm

Whatnot Publishing has recruited Batman: White Knight creator Sean Gordon Murphy to illustrate the cover for Blake Northcott’s The North Valley Grimoire. Northcott is the international bestselling author of Arena Mode, which is currently in development as a streaming series for Heavy Metal Studios. Murphy’s cover for The North Valley Grimoire #1 will be the first time the duo has collaborated together since DC’s ongoing Catwoman series in 2020. The North Valley Grimoire is a new series being published by Whatnot Publishing, which is based on the novel of the same name by Northcott.

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ComicBook.com can exclusively reveal Sean Gordon Murphy’s cover of The North Valley Grimoire #1. It was colored by Bryan Valenza. Valenza also colors the interior of the book, with art by Giuseppe Cafaro. Valenza and Cafaro are reuniting with Northcott after their cyberpunk series Synapse, which appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine. In 2018, The North Valley Grimoire was crowdfunded through Kickstarter, becoming the platform’s most-funded prose novel ever in Canada.

“The Catwoman #23 cover was iconic,” says Northcott. “The issue sold out immediately, and within eight days a second printing was announced. Even years later, fans still ask me about it. So expectations were through the roof for this new cover, but Sean exceeded them!”

What Is The North Valley Grimoire About?

In 2018, The North Valley Grimoire was crowdfunded through Kickstarter, becoming the platform’s most-funded prose novel ever in Canada. It’s described as “Spycraft meets Spellcraft,” and is a magical spy thriller focusing on a CIA black ops division that hunts rogue magic users.

Whatnot Publishing announced on February 17th that it would publish a new ongoing series of comic books based on the novel. January 2019 saw The North Valley Grimoire become the #1 new release on Amazon Kindle pre-sales, and a #1 bestseller in the “Magical Realism” category. A spinoff story, “The Omega Artifact,” was released on Amazon in 2020, and is currently in development to become a feature film with Papa Octopus Productions.

The North Valley Grimoire #1 goes on sale May 17th. You can find all of the covers below, with the variants added to file folders to look like dossiers.