Sean Phillips Variant Cover for Velvet #1.

In which we had a great weekend out of town, except for missing this news...

Velvet #1 is in stores this week, from Ed Brubaker, his long-time Captain America collaborator Steve Epting, and the new Fatale colorist Bettie Breitweiser.  Comic Book Resources has an extended preview of the debut issue, with two pages that weren't included in the USA Today interview we covered earlier.   In early reviews, CBR gives the issue four out of five stars, and Comicosity gave it a 9.5 out of ten.  Aint It Cool has a brief interview with artist Steve Epting.

There's even bigger news for those of us who are especially fans of Ed Brubaker's collaborations with Sean Phillips.

We've covered the Comic Art Festival that was held in Kendal, UK, this past weekend, and on Friday their official Twitter feed announced an exclusive variant of Velvet #1, with cover art by Sean Phillips.

Secret festival limited edition comic revealed in Comics Clock Tower from 10.30am. It's @brubaker Velvet issue 1 with cover by@seanpphillips
— Comic Art Festival (@comicartfest) October 19, 2013

Digging around, we found that, while the issue was launched at the Comic Art Festival, it will also be available through the UK's Forbidden Planet, and the site is taking presale orders until October 23rd.  At the time of this blog entry's publication, that's less than four hours away, London time.

Update, 8:45 pm ET:  It appears that, with the presale over, the variant issue is now on sale, at the same address.

It's a beautiful cover, and we can confirm that Forbidden Planet does take international orders.