Posted in: Comics, Image | Tagged: frazer irving, gutsville, image comics, si spurrier

Si Spurrier and Frazer Irving's Gutsville Returns From Image Comics?

Published Thu, 26 Nov 2020 08:20:31 -0600

Gutsville was a comic book created by Si Spurrier and Frazer Irving, published by Image Comics, back in 2007. An intended six-issue series, it took a year to publish the first three issues then came to a stop. The creative team had worked together on From Grace and The Simping Detective at 2000AD, Spurrier had been looking to break into the American market and Irving seemed the ideal partner because he'd already worked at Marvel and DC. As Irving had spoken to people at Image Comics, Spurrier prepared two pitches and Gutsville was picked because of its high-concept pitch.

It tells the story of an English ship called the Daphne, which headed out to reach Australia in 1846. It never makes it, as the ship and all of its passengers (including slaves, missionaries, and English settlers) are swallowed up by some gargantuan, oceanic beast. Skip forward to the present day and the descendants of the original passengers are living in Gutsville, a shanty town within the belly of this mysterious creature.

But soon after getting accepted, Irving got the job providing art for David Hine's Silent War at Marvel Comics after the original artist backed out, which his production schedules badly. Issue #1 sold out and went for a second printing in July 2007, Matt Timson provided back-up strip art for issue #2 published in September 2007, with #3 released in March 2008 with a text back-up text story illustrated by Boo Cook.

That was that, but the comic was never put to sleep. Rumours of its return and the final three issues getting rescheduled have floated about the place ever since. But yesterday, replying to an enquiring tweet from a month ago, and in the light of Si Spurrier getting a high-profile X-Men gig again, it seems that it was time. Frazer Irving tweeted;