Image Comics and Skybound Entertainment have announced that popular spinoff story The Walking Dead: The Alien will make it’s hardcover debut this July! The spinoff started its life on Panel Syndicate, a hosting site for digital comics, before making its way to a limited physical release as a single issue paperback for Local Comic Shop Day. Now, for the first time, it will be made widely available in a physical format.

The Walking Dead: The Alien is notable in that it’s one of the only comic spinoffs which was not written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Charlie Adlard– rather, the story was penned by Brian K. Vaughan (of Saga fame) and features art by Marcos Martin (The Private Eye, Barrier). “I couldn’t be a bigger fan of Vaughan and Martin’s work,” said Kirkman. “I’ve been very hesitant to allow anyone to play in the Walking Dead sandbox in comic form but when the opportunity arose for these gents to show up what Charlie Adlard and I had been doing, I jumped at the chance. It’s remarkable what Vaughan and Martin were able to accomplish in one self-contained story. A tale with so much heart and emotion told far more succinctly than I’ve ever been capable of. I’m so thrilled to finally be sharing this story with a wider audience in this spectacular hardcover edition.”

The new oversized hardcover edition of The Walking Dead: The Alien will also feature never before seen designs, sketches, and layouts. You can take a look at some of these sketches here courtesy of Image/Skybound, and remember to keep a lookout for the new book, which officially releases on Wednesday, July 29th and will be in bookstores Tuesday, August 4th. It can be pre-ordered at local comic book shops and independent bookstores and on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, IndieBound, and Indigo.