Ain't No Grave #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAin't No Grave #2 is the pivotal world-building issue of Skottie Young and Jorge Corona's third Image Comics collaboration, introducing readers to Cypress — a purgatorial frontier city that sits between the living and the dead — as the series' central supernatural geography. The issue deepens protagonist Ryder's moral complexity by revealing, via flashback, that she is a murderer as well as a mother, complicating reader sympathies in a way that lifts the story above standard Western revenge fare. Coming so quickly on the heels of issue #1 that both issues were simultaneously rushed back to a second printing, the issue demonstrated unusually strong direct-market momentum for a creator-owned mature-readers miniseries. As the second chapter in a complete five-issue arc, it also marks the narrative pivot from world-establishment to propulsive, consequence-laden action.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Image Comics announced Ain't No Grave in February 2024 as the third collaboration between Eisner Award-winning writer Skottie Young and Eisner Award-nominated artist Jorge Corona — following their Eisner-nominated Middlewest (2018–2019) and Bram Stoker Award-nominated The Me You Love in the Dark (2021). Young described the project on his Substack as emerging from a desire to write from an adult's perspective after several child-centric stories, tapping 'that darker side of my imagination' to explore a character transformed by love and threatened by mortality. The full creative team carried over intact: colorist Jean-François Beaulieu and letterer Nate Piekos, who had worked with Young and Corona on all their previous Image miniseries. Issue #2 shipped June 12, 2024, and sold through fast enough that a second printing, featuring cover art by Jorge Corona, was on shelves just five weeks later on July 17.
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- Written by Skottie Young; art and cover by Jorge Corona; colored by Jean-François Beaulieu; lettered by Nate Piekos. Published June 12, 2024 by Image Comics as issue #2 of a 5-issue miniseries.
- First appearance and introduction of the city of Cypress — a purgatorial waypoint between life and death that serves as the series' primary supernatural setting beyond Ryder's homestead.
- Issue reveals, via flashback, that protagonist Ryder robbed a train while pregnant, reframing her as a morally compromised outlaw rather than a sympathetic victim — a deliberate character swerve by Young.
- Ryder learns of and begins her pursuit of the riverboat 'Her Blind Majesty,' setting the stage for the next leg of her journey toward Death.
- The issue sold through its first print run quickly enough that a second printing was announced and released July 17, 2024 — the same week as the first printing of issue #3.
- Ain't No Grave #1 went through at least three printings; both issues #1 and #2 were simultaneously reprinted, confirming the series' strong sell-through across the first two installments.
- The complete five-issue series was collected in Ain't No Grave TP, Vol. 1, released December 4, 2024, and is also available digitally on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
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