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EXCLUSIVE First Look: Mattia De Iulis & Meredith McClaren 'Black Cloak' covers
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EXCLUSIVE First Look: Mattia De Iulis & Meredith McClaren ‘Black Cloak’ covers

Detective storytelling, fantasy creatures, magic, neo-noir sci-fi all collide in a spectacular triple-length first issue hitting shelves in the New Year.

Courtesy of Image Comics, AIPT can exclusively reveal variant covers for Kelly Thompson and Meredith McClaren’s Black Cloak. Out on January 11th, the first issue will feature variant covers by Mattia De Iulis and Meredith McClaren.

“Mattia De Iulis is my partner for another creator-owned series called The Cull (also coming in 2023!), and he turned in a variant cover for Black Cloak #3 recently that was so good Meredith and I decided we just had to have him do a special issue 1 cover as well, fortunately, he was able to make some time for us,” Thompson said. “He’s the best!”

“Mattia is too fast and too good. It’s not fair.  And we’re rivals now,” McClaren added.

Check out De Lulis’ cover below.

EXCLUSIVE First Look: Mattia De Iulis & Meredith McClaren 'Black Cloak' covers

So what’s Black Cloak about?

It is perhaps best described as Blade Runner style mixed with Saga-esque drama in a delectable fantasy/sci-fi blend. As two Black Cloaks try to solve the murder of a beloved prince in Kiros—the last city in the known world—his murder escalates political tensions and provides the catalyst for impending war. Detective storytelling, fantasy creatures, magic, neo-noir sci-fi all collide in a spectacular triple-length first issue hitting shelves in the New Year.

Thompson had this to say about McClaren’s variant: “Meredith’s main cover for our series is one of my favorite images we’ve done for the series, and it totally matches with the world of Black Cloak — but because it’s so mermaid focused it IS missing some of the cool Sci-Fi/neo-noir/detective vibes we’ve also got going on in Black Cloak and so this felt like such a great opportunity for Meredith to do a very different cover from the mermaid cover, that leaned into those other aspects of our book. Turned out so gorgeous. Those colors!”

“This was a nice opportunity to try something a little closer to those old pulpy noir compositions,” McClaren added.

Check out McClaren’s variant below.

EXCLUSIVE First Look: Mattia De Iulis & Meredith McClaren 'Black Cloak' covers

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