Terry Moore Releases First Strangers in Paradise Revival Teaser Image

Indie comics icon Terry Moore has released the first teaser art for January’s revival of his long-running series Strangers in Paradise, which appears to be operating under the working title of Strangers in Paradise XXV.

The image, seen in the attached gallery, despicts a door open, a letter sitting on the floor next to a torn envelope, with the message “The door opens in January.”

The image is a reference to, and inversion of, the final page of Strangers in Paradise‘s original run, in which Francine and Katchoo literally closed the door on the reader, gently poking at the fourth wall and implying that it was time for the pair and their children to live in privacy after years of being in the spotlight.

Strangers in Paradise, which ran from 1993 until 2007, was Moore’s entree in the world of comic books after a career in advertising, music, and animation. It centered on three friends (Katchoo, David, and Francine) who had a complex relationship — and two of whom had dangerous, intersecting pasts.

During a conversation with ComicBook.com at his Comic Con booth, Moore admitted that he was toying with the idea of Motor Girl literally handing off its story to Strangers in Paradise. A member of the Motor Girl supporting cast is actually Francine Peters’s aunt, so there would be a justification for bringing Katchoo, Francine, and/or their kids to the ol’ UFO garage.

Moore previously talks about Strangers in Paradise as a property he could bring back as a prose novel, although he has had trouble doing both that and dealing with the press of deadlines on his ongoing comics work. The revival, though, is not just the comic book version of that novel.

“[This is] something entirely new,” Moore told ComicBook.com. “The prose novel is really in-depth and covers a lot of ground — things that you can’t cover in a standard comic book. I haven’t really said much about the story because I don’t want to offer any spoilers.”

Strangers in Paradise XXV launches in January.