Pride of Baghdad returns
- Image Comics is releasing a new hardcover 20th‑anniversary edition of Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon's Pride of Baghdad. - The reissue will arrive this fall and includes new cover art. - The prestige reprint highlights Image's backlist strategy and will be a notable collectible for literary graphic‑novel readers (fanboyfactor.com).
Image Comics is bringing *Pride of Baghdad* back in a 20th-anniversary hardcover edition, with the new release set for September 23, 2026 in comic shops. (imagecomics.com) The new edition comes from writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Niko Henrichon, and Image lists it at 168 pages with a $24.99 cover price. (imagecomics.com) Image said the hardcover will include Henrichon’s new wraparound dust-jacket art, never-before-seen extras, and a new afterword by Vaughan. A Direct Market Exclusive version for comic shops will reuse the original first-edition cover. (imagecomics.com) The book first came out through DC’s Vertigo imprint in September 2006, so the reissue moves a once-Vertigo graphic novel into Image’s current catalog 20 years later. (dc.com) (imagecomics.com) *Pride of Baghdad* fictionalizes the real escape of four lions from the Baghdad Zoo during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, using the animals’ brief freedom to tell a war story without human protagonists at the center. (dc.com) (ebsco.com) The original book won IGN’s Best Original Graphic Novel award and later landed on the American Library Association’s “Great Graphic Novels for Teens: Top Ten” list, giving it a longer shelf life than many mid-2000s original graphic novels. (imagecomics.com) The reissue also arrives as Vaughan remains one of the medium’s most commercially durable writers through *Saga*, while Henrichon recently reunited with him on *Spectators*, another Image-published hardcover project. (imagecomics.com) (amazon.com) For Image, the release adds another prestige-format backlist book to a catalog that already leans heavily on durable library, bookstore, and collector editions alongside monthly comics. (imagecomics.com 1) (imagecomics.com 2) The schedule is split by market: local comic shops get the hardcover on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, and bookstores get it on Tuesday, October 20, 2026. Twenty years after its first printing, the book is being positioned again as a literary graphic novel rather than a period curio. (imagecomics.com)
