Close on the heels of the conclusion to Mouse Guard: The Black Axe and news regarding the release of a collected hardcover edition of all six issues in July, Archaia Entertainment has announced Volume 2 of the Eisner-Award winning title, Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard.
Debuting in May, the four-issue, mini-series from cartoonist David Petersen will be an anthology and feature contributions from industry leaders such as Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Bill Willingham (Fables), and Rick Geary (Dark Horse Presents, Cheval Noir), as well as newer voices.
The first issue will include Sakai, Ben Caldwell (The Dare Detectives!), and Nick Tapalansky (Awakening, PopGun)and Alex Eckman-Lawn (The God Machine, Awakening (Mouse Guard and Other Stories: Free Comic Book Day, Fraggle Rock, Flight), Eric Canete (Rocketeer Adventures, Fear Itself: Spider-Man, Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin), C.P. Wilson III (Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Stuff of Legend), and Justin Gerard (Flight). ). Additional issues will include contributions from Christian Slade (Korgi), Jemma Salume (Unicorn Life Cycle), Jackson Sze (concept art on films like The Avengers and Iron Man 3), Cory Godbey
The original Mouse Guard premiered in 2006 as a six-issue series, collected as Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, which continued as Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 through 2009. Although it has also spawned a series of Free Comic Book Day one-shots, the next ongoing installment was the four-issue mini-series in 2010 entitled Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard. Mouse Guard: The Black Axe is the most recent story in Petersen's sprawling epic. A New York Times bestseller, Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard won the Eisner for Best Anthology in 2011. The series was also the foundation for a 2011 RPG game (see "'Mouse Guard' RPG Box Set").
--Nathan Wilson
