Chapterhouse Expands in 2017

The news from Chapterhouse Books earlier this week was simultaneously exciting and frustrating. I found out about it while at a cottage with limited internet access so I wasn’t able to get at information as quickly or thoroughly as I would have liked.

On the other hand, tackling it several days later, I can refer to various sources for details.  And it all sounds pretty damn sweet.

For those who missed it entirely, Chapterhouse is expanding its output to include more books about (mostly?) Canadian characters, from the past, all of which will share a universe with Captain Canuck (in fact, it’s referred to the “Chapterverse”). The announced projects on tap include:

Fantomah by Ray Fawkes and Soo Lee. Comic Book Resources referred to this one as “joining the Captain Canuck serial” so perhaps this will take the form of a back-up story. 

Agents Of Pact: An all-female super team including Red Coat and Kebec from the modern-day Captain Canuck book.  Canuck writer Kalman Andrasofszky and Blake Northcott will write it.  

Freelance:  The Golden Age era character, re-imagined by Jim Zub and Andrew Wheeler with art by Vaneda Vireak. This book is described by Geekpron as a “globe-trotting adventure series”.  

Northern Light: Van Jensen and Eric Kim will restore the character in a sci-fi tale.

Additionally, Captain Canuck will cross over with the Pitiful Human-Lizard and the Northguard book will continue with a new story arc.

Again according to Geekpron, Freelance and Agents of Pact will kick things off in January and run for four issues at which point two other new books will replace them (presumably for four issues as well, and also presumably Northern Light and Northguard, since I’m not sure Fantomah will have her own title right away) and so on and so forth.

Now add the regular Captain Canuck / Human-Lizard content to this, as well as the bi-monthly True Patriot book, and you’ve got a regular source of Canadian characters and (for the most part) creators to look forward to. This is fantastic news.

I’m only vaguely familiar with Freelance and Fantomah but will be looking into them a little more over the next few days.