By Zack Quaintance — I was out sick yesterday (nasty stomach bug, thankfully not COVID), and of course a piece of comics news drops that looks like it was aimed right at me — Alex Ross is writing and illustrating Fantastic Four: Full Circle, a graphic novel that looks viscerally indebted to Jack Kirby.

You can see the Kirby influence clearly in the images from the book shared below, although looking at the faces for Reed and Sue especially, other parts of this work read as all Ross. Check out the first glimpses of the artwork, which are pretty stunning…

As if the Kirby influence weren’t evident enough, the announcement text for this book notes the following: “…the first longform work written and illustrated by acclaimed artist Alex Ross, who revisits a classic Stan Lee–Jack Kirby story from the 1960s and introduces the storyline for a new generation of readers.”

Well, that all sounds excellent. Count me in.

Due out August 2, the 64-page book is being published by Abrams ComicArts, which bills it as part of a new collaborative line that sees that publisher teaming with Marvel Comics, called the Negative Zone and MarvelArts. While details on this line are at the moment scarce, if this first entry is any indication, one could see this being a sort of answer to DC Comics’ prestige imprint, Black Label, which has similarly enabled creators to deliver more idiosyncratic, auteur takes on well-known and beloved characters. If I was looking to kickstart a prestige publishing effort centered around familiar superhero characters, a book by Alex Ross re-telling a classic Stan and Jack story is pretty much exactly what I would do…

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.