PAUL POPE IS THE COVER — BAD IDEA Reveals The LANCER #1 “Paul Pope” Cover That Will Change Comics!

On October 21st, we unleash LANCER #1, a brutal near-future action thriller.

LANCER is ALIENS meets the gig economy: military veterans use an app to hunt dangerous species for cash, until one job beneath New York City hunts them back.

Months ago, we proudly announced that BAD IDEA had commissioned legendary artist Paul Pope to create a special variant cover for LANCER #1.

Pope would join New York Times best-selling writer Mike Costa (Netflix’s LUCIFER), superstar-in-the-making Jake Baker, Eisner Award-winning colorist LeeLoughridge (BATMAN), and a can’t miss line-up of cover artists that included Jerome Opeña, Chris Burnham, Manix Abrera, Don Aguillo, and an actual friggin’ knife that we turned into a comic and somehow printed LANCER #1 onto.

A Paul Pope cover is a rare thing. Each one requires an extraordinary amount of time, craft, and painstaking work from one of the most singular artists in comics.

And yet, despite all that effort, a conventional Paul Pope cover contains almost no actual Paul Pope.

No esoteric, Picasso-esque interpretation of Paul Pope. No impressionistic meditation on the idea of Paul Pope. No abstract arrangement of shapes purported to evoke Paul Pope.

Not even a small Paul Pope somewhere in the background.

Just his art.

Paul and BAD IDEA agreed: comics readers deserve more.

Today, we proudly reveal the LANCER #1 “Paul Pope” Cover: the first Paul Pope cover in history to feature Paul Pope himself.

It is a photograph of Paul Pope.

To be absolutely clear: the LANCER #1 “Paul Pope” Cover does not merely feature artwork created by Paul Pope. It features Paul Pope. His face. His hair. His denim jacket. On the cover. Of LANCER #1.

“I’ve drawn a lot of covers,” said Pope. “This is the first one I’ve had to stand still for.”

We said there would be a Paul Pope Cover.

We have now delivered more Paul Pope per square inch than any Paul Pope cover in history.

There is now no reasonable way to argue otherwise.

The LANCER #1 “Paul Pope” Cover is available exclusively as a limited ratio variant. Contact your local comic shop to preorder your copy before Final Order Cutoff on Monday, September 21st.

But no other Paul Pope cover has ever contained this much Paul Pope.

As Andy Warhol famously should have said, “When commerce becomes art, art must become commerce.”

This is a blazing innovation in comic book publishing from the people who brought you invisible comics, vampiric comics, vampiric comics impaled with a wooden stake, and an actual knife that is also somehow a comic book.

Stay tuned. Next: BAD IDEA announces a “Jim Lee” cover.

In the near future, if you need extra cash, you open an app. Accept a hunt. Get paid to exterminate whatever dangerous species is overrunning your part of the world. Coyotes in California. King cobras in Mumbai. Feral camels in Australia. Vampire bats in Brazil. If it threatens people, property, or profit, LANCER puts a bounty on its head.

For military vets like Pete Sanborn, it offers something modern life rarely does anymore: a mission, a paycheck, and the hope that one more job might finally be enough.

Two years after a wild hog hunt in Texas went catastrophically wrong, Sanborn has sworn he is done with the app.

Then an old military buddy shows up with an offer he can’t refuse.

Something enormous is living beneath New York City. The payout is life-changing. But the creatures below are not what anyone thinks they are, and by the time Sanborn understands what they are really hunting, it may already be too late.

Think Aliens, Predator, Jurassic Park, and RoboCop.

The Colonial Marines meet DoorDash.

Clock in. Hunt. Survive. Get paid.

It’s a living.

LANCER #1 interior art by Jake Baker & Lee Loughridge

Finally! The BAD IDEA series that started it all is getting the ultra-deluxe hardcover collection it deserves. That’s right. New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt and superstar artist Doug Braithwaite’s sci-fi blockbuster ENIAC is BAD IDEA’s next Kickstarter campaign!

Don’t miss out! Click the link or the button below to follow Matt Kindt and Doug Braithwaite’s ENIAC!