By Zack Quaintance — Image Comics has announced Above Snakes, a new fantasy/western genre mash-up comic from frequent collaborators writer Sean Lewis and artist Hayden Sherman, with lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. The five issue miniseries is slated to launch with Above Snakes #1 on July 13. This marks the third collaboration for Lewis and Sherman, with Thumbs and The Few being the first two.

As eagle-eyed readers of this website (and, I guess, of other comics websites as well….) have no doubt noticed, this marks the second high-profile new comics announcement for Sherman this week. Yes, Sherman had a book in IDW Publishing’s rollout of nine new original titles, teaming as he is with writer Scott Snyder on Dark Spaces: Wildfire, which also has its first issue arriving in July. We’ve got a plot synposis with creator quotes about the book after the jump below, along with five lettered interior pages.

Above Snakes Preview

I absolutely love Sherman’s work on this book, and I think he’s a rare artist who continues to both take giant new risks and get noticeably better with each project. I’m a big fan, and at this point, I’m automatically reading any comic he works on. But enough of my rambling! The promo material and pages are below…

"After two sci-fi books with Hayden, they presented a new challenge," said Lewis. "What about a Western? I thought of all the old movies my grandpa watched. I wasn't sure how to do that. But I did know how to blow it up. And I did know how to write about vengenace. Hayden and Hassan have jsut elevated that to an ungodly level. It's a fun book."

In Above Snakes, readers are introduced to a story that’s equal parts Deadwood-style Western and Neil Gaiman-esque fantasy. It’s the story of Dirt, a man seeking vengeance for his murdered wife with nothing but a talking vulture to prod him on. Above Snakes is a fast and furious explosion of Western tropes and American vengeance that explores where our rage can take us.

Sherman added: "Above Snakes is classic western gunslinging fun that’s been made all the better by Sean’s distinct voice that, as always, immediately adds to each genre he steps into. At the same time, it's been a blast making something new out of the well loved visual language that comes with the old west."

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.