Rebellion Releases — 23 August 2023

A new edition of one of the most influential graphic novels ever – in incredible detail and at a scale never before seen! Sláine: The Horned God Anniversary Edition is coming in 2024.

Timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of its first publication in 2000 AD in 1989, this new edition of Pat Mills and Simon Bisley’s groundbreaking and best-selling collection will feature brand new scans – meaning readers will be able to see its fully-painted art in unprecedented new detail.

Measuring 355mm by 270mm, the 208-page paperback Sláine: The Horned God Anniversary Edition will arrive in stores in May 2024.

Rebellion is also delighted to announce the Sláine: The Horned God Anniversary Edition Slipcase. Available exclusively through the 2000 AD webshop and also measuring 355mm by 270mm, this boxset will feature the three books of ‘The Horned God’ in separate hardcovers, housed in a stunning slipcase covered with Celtic motifs and the ’S’ from the original Sláine logo that featured in Pat Mills and artist Angie Kincaid’s first story in 1983.

This promises to be a unique collection: both editions will be produced using pages scanned from the original film, housed in the 2000 AD archive, and will also be printed at a size that more closely matches Bisley’s original artwork – giving readers the opportunity to see the greatest Sláine epic in unmatched detail.

‘The Horned God’ is the definitive Sláine storyline, its appearance in the pages of 2000 AD in three instalments between 1989 and 1990 marked a creative high-point for the comic, and the work inspired artists for generations with its incredible painted scenes of epic battles evoking the work of Frank Frazetta but in the medium of comic art.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer, this heady mix of Celtic mythology, barbed anti-authoritarian politics, and extreme violence combined Mills’ fascinating characters and saga-like storytelling with Bisley’s incredible artwork. It sparked a revolution in sequential comic books and spawned a multitude of imitators – yet even after three and a half decades, their masterpiece is as fresh and startling as it was when it was first published as a weekly serial.

Sláine is a wandering warrior cast out from his tribe and wandering the mist-wreathed realm of Tír na nÓg, the ‘Land of the Young’, with his duplicitous dwarf, Ukko. This deluxe collector’s edition returns us to this ancient land, suffering under the dominion of the Drunes; strange druids who have poisoned the land with their magic. Sláine has had enough of their tyranny and, through the Earth Goddess, he learns some shocking truths about the priesthood and his own future. Now Sláine must unite the four kings of Tír na nÓg and use their mystical weapons as he and the Sessair tribe prepare for all-out war!

With brand new scans and in its oversized format, Sláine: The Horned God Anniversary Edition promises to bring one of comics’ greatest sagas to live in a way never before seen!

2000AD Prog 2346
Cover: Peter Yong.

Cadet Dredd: The Exchange by James Peaty (w) Joe Currie (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
Lowborn High; Wishing Well by David Barnett (w) Mike Walters (a) Pippa Bowland (c) Jim Campbell (l)
Futute Shocks: Autocop by Karl Stock (w) Toby Willsmer (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
Renk: Twinkle Toes by Paul Starkey (w) Anna Readman (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Simon Bowland (l)