Posted in: Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: bill willingham, fables, Outrider, Raconteur Press

Fables' Bill Willingham Announces His Fantasy Novel Trilogy, Outrider

Fables and Elementals creator Bill Willingham announces his new fantasy novel trilogy, Outrider, will be published in 2027

Bill Willingham, writer, artist, and creator of Fables from DC/Vertigo, Elementals from Comico, Coventry from Fantagraphics, Vampirella and Fire And Ice from Dynamite, Lark's Killer from Devil's Due, and four-time winner of the Eisner Awards, is switching into prose epic fantasy with a new series of novels, the Outrider trilogy, to be published by Raconteur Press beginning in 2027. And you can read the first chapter of the first book, The Giant, The Witch, And The Warlord, right here, right now, on Bill Willingham's Substack. Back in March, he wrote;

"By way of explanation: About two years ago I took a year off from all other work to write three prose novels about a questing hero known only as The Outrider. The titles of the three books are: The Giant, the Witch, and the Warlord (Book One); The Sorcerer (Book Two); and The King of the West (Book Three). After the original publishing deal fell through, for reasons I will not describe here, I went looking for a new home for the trilogy. I've also considered other avenues of publication, such as running a crowd-funding campaign. Rumor has it Brandon Sanderson, who dashed off four original novels (without interrupting his many other obligations), was able to raise upwards of forty million in his crowd-funder (to which I can only say, "wow"). While I'm hardly in the Sandersonian league of prose authors, maybe I could eke out one tenth of one percent of his success, were I to go the same route. Or, I could first publish the books here, in a new for-pay section of this Substack. The search continues, but I thought I might tease you with an opening chapter. Enjoy."

But it seems a prose publisher stepped up. The Giant, The Witch And The Warlord will now be published by Raconteur Press in January 2027, intentionally mirroring the title of the first of the C.S. Lewis Narnia books to be published, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. This will be followed by The Sorcerer and The King Of The West later in the year. All three manuscripts are complete and in production. This will not be A Game Of Thrones/A Song Of Fire and Ice-type situation; the series has been finished in its entirety.

Raconteur Press says that the Outrider series is epic fantasy in the classic tradition of sword and sorcery. The story features morally complex characters, heroes who behave heroically, and centres on an oath kept at any cost. It is Willingham's first extended prose sword and sorcery work, and a deliberate return to the genre he loved before he ever worked in comics."I've always wanted to write this kind of story. This is the fantasy I grew up reading. Getting to write it, in prose, on my own terms — that's exactly what this is", says Bill Willingham.

Willingham approached Raconteur Press directly. Founded by veteran law-enforcement officer Ian McMurtrie in 2022, Raconteur Press states that the Texas-based independent publisher is known in the author community for its dedication to transparency and focus on treating authors as partners rather than IP assets. "Recently, I was presented with the worst publishing contract I've ever been offered in a forty-five-year career. It had so many hidden traps and minefields, at first I thought it must be a joke. Add to that everything that happened with Fables and DC, among a lifetime of bad deals, working with a publisher that puts its contracts where anyone can read them was not a small consideration. Raconteur does that. It mattered," says Bill Willingham.

"We understand why he came to us, and we intend to honor that trust by doing the job right." says Ian McMurtrie. Raconteur Press states that it has worked with more than 400 authors across its three book lines since 2022, publishing over a hundred books, including dozens of anthologies, story-first genre novels, and award-winning Boys' Adventure titles. It also published sample contracts publicly.

This comes a few years after Bill Willingham first said that he had "fired" DC Comics from publishing Fables, stated that his comic book series Fables was to be considered public domain, (when it was using almost entirely public domain characters anyway) which came as quite the surprise to his fellow writers and artists on the Fables franchise, and not least of all publisher DC Comics, to whom hge had siogned over the rights above, and who had taken up a trademarek on the comic book series. At the time, he said, "I am not in any way sour on Fables. And I'll happily still sign Fables books and talk Fables at cons. I'm just soured on a certain publisher that joined the dark side." He was also boycotted by a bookstore in 2015 but that was some time ago…

The cover above, Bill says, is to be considered a work in progress. The full cover reveal for The Giant, The Witch, And The Warlord is planned for June 2026, and pre-orders open on the 1st of August, 2026.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!