Dark Horse Comics is giving Hideyuki Kikuchi's long-running Vampire Hunter D franchise its first official comic series, and it arrives with a genuinely stacked creative team.
Vampire Hunter D: Fortress of Blood is a brand new 4-issue miniseries, not an adaptation of an existing novel chapter, which makes it a real next step for a franchise that has run continuously since 1983.
Between the announcement at Anime NYC 2026 and the issue's December release, there is already plenty of concrete detail worth tracking before issue #1 hits shelves.
Here is the complete breakdown of the release date, the people making it, the plot, and the physical format collectors should expect.
Issue #1 of Vampire Hunter D: Fortress of Blood ships December 16, 2026 from Dark Horse Comics, priced at $4.99 per issue.
The series runs four issues total, giving the story a tight, complete arc rather than an open-ended ongoing commitment collectors have to track indefinitely.
The series is written by Chris Condon, known for the acclaimed crime-western series That Texas Blood, with art by Filipe Andrade, co-creator of the Eisner-nominated The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
Jordie Bellaire colors the series and Frank Cvetkovic letters it, rounding out a team with real horror and genre-comics pedigree rather than a generic licensed-comic lineup.
The official synopsis follows a vampire lord who has marshalled his forces and is marching on human settlements aiming to leave no survivors, with an old fortress standing in his path to the next city.
Inside that fortress is a family of outcasts who have to buy enough time for humans to flee, while D himself, the half-human, half-vampire hunter, wanders the very same path toward the coming fight.
Unlike the two major anime films, Fortress of Blood is not based on any specific existing novel; Dark Horse has described it as spawned from a concept from Kikuchi himself, which is why it carries the first official comic series distinction.
That matters for longtime readers deciding whether to treat it as required reading or a standalone side story, since it slots alongside rather than inside the established 40-plus-novel timeline.
Each issue is a standard-format floppy comic: full color, 32 pages, at 6 5/8 inches by 10 3/16 inches, which lines up with modern current-age comic sizing rather than an oversized or digest format.
The series also carries an 18+ age rating, consistent with the franchise's long history of blending gothic horror with genuinely adult content rather than a watered-down licensed tie-in.
Fortress of Blood arrives alongside other Dark Horse Vampire Hunter D activity, including an English translation of the Rose Princess manga spin-off set for 2027, part of a broader push to grow the franchise's English-language footprint.
It also lands in the middle of renewed anime attention, with the 1985 original film's 40th-anniversary re-release in 2025 and a newly announced Bloodlust theatrical return putting the franchise back in front of audiences right before this comic debuts.
Issue #1 ships with a 1:15 Yoshitaka Amano virgin variant in the mix, which raises the stakes on day-one protection well above a typical single issue.
A current-age comic bag and a current-age toploader cover both the everyday copy and anything pulled as a chase variant.
Dark Horse isn't only publishing Fortress of Blood right now; the same publisher also handles the English-language novel omnibus editions and the upcoming Rose Princess manga translation launching in 2027.
That gives Dark Horse a genuinely unified role across prose, manga, and original comics for this franchise, rather than one publisher simply licensing a single tie-in book.
Fortress of Blood #1 carries its own UPC and solicitation listing under Dark Horse's horror, manga, media tie-in, and science-fiction genre tags, which is exactly the kind of catalog classification worth mentioning to your local shop when pre-ordering.
A retailer unfamiliar with the franchise can still pull up the exact solicitation by publisher and release date, so don't assume a small shop needs you to explain who Vampire Hunter D is before they can order it for you.
Before you go further, it is worth keeping a couple of essentials on hand: EVORETRO Current Age Comic Bags and EVORETRO Current-Age Comic Book Toploader both help keep this collection in solid shape long-term.
No, Dark Horse describes it as an original story from a concept by creator Hideyuki Kikuchi.
Four issues total, each priced at $4.99.
It carries an 18+ rating, consistent with the franchise's adult horror content.
Filipe Andrade draws and provides the main cover, with Jordie Bellaire on colors and Frank Cvetkovic on letters.
With a December 16 release date and real collector interest already building around the Amano variant, now is the time to make sure your supplies are ready before the first issue arrives.
Browse EVORETRO's full comic supplies collection to stock up before release day.
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