While we won’t be seeing a new Back to the Future movie while Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale still breathe, we will get a whole new comic—one that wants to fill in the gaps left by the movies. And even better news: Bob Gale himself is helping to write it!


Yes, Gale, backed up by staple IDW writers John Barber (Transformers) and Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters) willpen the series, with a rotating team of artists beginning with Brent Schoonover and Dan Schoening. The comic won’t try to directly follow up the movie trilogy, but instead embed itself into the ongoing events of the films, filling in gaps from the different time periods Doc and Marty visit and offering explanations for some of the movies’ different elements.


Back to the Future will also have a slightly unorthodox format, too—instead of being a continuous story told in an ongoing set of comics, each issue will have two separate tales, creating an anthology of short stories set in the BttF universe. For example, the first issue’s stories will uncover the origins of how Doc Brown and Marty met each other, and cover Doc’s work on the Manhattan project during World War II.

It’s a neat way to do a BttF comic, and draws on storytelling elements the films already dabbled with anyway. Considering Zemeckis’ recent comments about the future of, er, Back to the Future, it’s not at all surprising to see that this deliberately isn’t a Back to the Future 4 or something.

Back To The Future #1 will be out in October.

[Via CBR]