‘Something Is Killing The Children’ To Run At Least 100 Issues

Something might be killing the children, but nothing is killing Something is Killing the Children — at least for a good long while. As revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, the BOOM! Studios title will run at least 100 issues.

The news comes via The Beat, which was reporting from the Slaughterverse panel at SDCC. There, writer James Tynion IV revealed that thanks to the acquisition of BOOM! by book publisher Random House, SIKTC is contracted to run at least 100 issues. While not much more info was shared about this particular business contract for the book by Tynion and artist Werther Dell’Edera, the panel did reportedly comment on how wild it was to get to 50 issues, let alone 100 — with Tynion noting the longest run he’s ever done on a series was 50 issues, on his Batman/Detective Comics runs for DC.

Also noteworthy? This announcement comes when SIKTC isn’t even up to issue #50 yet. Something is Killing the Children #42 was released in June, #43 is coming out in August, and #44 isn’t scheduled to hit until October. While there will be an additional one-shot collecting an anthology story from BOOM!’s Hello Darkness, also released in October, that means at that pace Tynion and Dell’Edera are contracted to work on the series until, at least, 2035. Wild!

So… Why the long contract? While I’m no big city lawyer, this is a pretty easy one to figure out. Something is Killing the Children doesn’t usually pop up in sales charts for individual issues, but it is a monster when it comes to bookstore sales. Pretty much any time a new volume hits shelves, previous volumes pick up sales, as well. And in fact, per the panel report, the editors of the book refer to arcs as “novels.” As Random House is a book publisher first, it’s a no-brainer to make sure there’s a huge library for Something is Killing the Children that can sit in bookstores for decades to come, in trade collections, compendiums, omnibuses, etc.

The big question is that with both Tynion and Dell’Edera very much in demand, how long will the next 56 issues take to potentially finish the series? That’s scarier than anything Erica Slaughter kills on a bi-monthly basis.

You can watch Tynion make the announcement (briefly) on TikTok.

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