Spike : Asylum

IDW Publishing is launching Spide: Asylum, a five-issue mini-series in September. Making their IDW debuts in the book are screenwriter Brian Lynch and Italian artist Franco Urru.

Here’s how IDW describes the book:

"Spike is offered the opportunity to be a hero — as well as earning a hefty fee — by helping the Monahan Family find their missing daughter, Ruby. As luck would have it, Ruby is a half-demon and has been checked into the Mosaic Wellness Center, a rehab facility for vampires, demons, and other creatures of the night. Spike s ’simple’ solution is to check himself in as a patient, but there’s a slight problem — the numerous super-powered, supernatural patients at the center happen to know Spike, and they want him dead. Can Spike survive the onslaught of mad monsters, much less the therapy?"

"The fun of doing a comic series featuring Spike is that we have a far bigger budget than any TV show," Lynch said. "Not in how much we’re getting paid, but everything and anything can happen. We can go as epic as we want to be and not worry about working within the restrictions of a weekly TV budget.

"I’ve been a fan of the Joss Whedon’s work and characters since the very first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy and Angel — and later Firefly and Serenity — have inspired and influenced me as a writer. The chance to play in his universe is a dream come true.

"The fact that Franco and I get a full five issues to tell a solo Spike tale lets us really delve into the character in ways that — hopefully — haven’t been seen. Spike’s a complicated character; he’s been both a ruthless killer and a hero who’s saved the world a handful of times. And he’s still not sure which role suits him best.

"I’m approaching the series as if it’s a full-on, big-budget Spike summer movie. Huge set pieces, fight scenes, and a supporting cast of hundreds demons, vampires, and other assorted monsters. But we don’t lose the character moments and serious smart-assery that Whedon fans have come to expect."

IDW will be announcing two other projects based on Whedon’s classic characters at Comic-Con International.