The Long Halloween Concludes with Final Chapter Honoring Original Artist Tim Sale

Batman: The Long Halloween is getting one final sequel this year, releasing in time to honor the late Tim Sale, the artist of the original series. Fittingly titled The Last Halloween, the story will act as a coda to Sale and writer Jeph Loeb’s tale of Batman chasing the Holiday killer, bringing a story begun twenty-five years ago to its epic finale.

According to DC.com, Batman: The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween #1 will be arriving this September, and will run for ten issues. Each issue will feature a different artist in memory of Tim Sale, with Eduardo Risso handling the art duties on the first.

Batman: The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween #1 (2024)
Release Date:	September 25, 2024
Writer:	Jeph Loeb
Artist:	Eduardo Risso
Colorist:	Dave Stewart
Letterer:	Richard Starkings
Cover Artist:	Tim Sale
Gotham City learns to fear Halloween once more as a terrible event threatens to destroy Jim Gordon’s life and puts Batman and Robin’s teamwork to the test more than ever before. In a city of liars, masked vigilantes, and criminals… can anyone be trusted?

Picking things up from Loeb and Sale’s last collaboration, Batman: The Long HalloweenSpecial from 2021, the art for future issues will be handled by Klaus Janson, Mark Chiarello and more to be announced at a later date.

The Last Halloween is the Final Chapter of Batman: The Long Halloween

The Long Halloween ran from 1997-1998, taking the novel approach of having each issue focus on the victim of a serial killer who only strikes on holidays. The series received a sequel in 1999 with Batman: Dark Victory, and the story was revived once more in 2021. According to Jeph Loeb, the new series has been in the works since the Long Halloween Special. “Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween is Tim Sale’s parting gift to me,” Loeb explains. “Tim and I had already decided to tell this last chapter following Batman: The Long Halloween Special, which will serve as the prologue to this 10-part action-packed mystery.”

Unfortunately, Tim Sale’s untimely passing in 2022 prevented him from drawing the final chapter in the Long Halloween saga. However, Loeb and the rest of creative team decided to move forward with the series as a tribute to the original artist:

“
Tim’s unfortunate passing put our plans for this series on hold,” Loeb continued. “About a year later, after speaking with Mark Chiarello and Richard Starkings, my partners on the previous
Long Halloween
titles, we decided the time was right to move this forward as a tribute to Tim, who continues to be with us in spirit.
”

Batman: The Last Halloween is a Tribute to Original Artist Tim Sale

As to how the saga of the Holiday killer will conclude, all bets are off. While Holiday was eventually brought to justice by Batman in The Long Halloween, there was some ambiguity as to whether or not he was responsible for all of the killings. The 2021 special added even more ambiguity, setting up an intriguing mystery for Last Halloween. “This story concludes the war between the freaks and the crime families forever,” Loeb says, “as Batman, Robin, and DC’s most infamous Bat-villains face off against Holiday, and secrets dating back to Batman: The Long Halloween Special will be revealed.”

Both The Long Halloween and Dark Victory acted as the perfect showcase for Tim Sale, as Loeb crafted stories that allowed the artist to draw Batman’s entire gallery of colorful rogues. In that way, The Last Halloween should act as the perfect coda to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s original Batman: The Long Halloween, with a host of comics’ best artists coming together to celebrate the life and work of Sale.

Source: DC.com