The Trollhunters franchise is expanding. After Trollhunters Part 3, Oscar-winning director Guillermo Del Toro plans to bring fans two new Netflix spinoff shows: Wizards and 3 Below. And that’s not all. In addition to the handful of existing Trollhunters books, the creative team of Marc Guggenheim (The Flash) and Richard Hamilton (How To Train Your Dragon) are collaborating with Dark Horse Comics to release a graphic novel.
Tales of Arcadia: The Secret History of Trollkind, slated for a Feb. 14 release, picks up with the squad -- Jim, Claire, Blinky and AARRGGHH -- as they fight to protect the trolls from the Gumm-Gumms.
“It’s an essential part of the lore,” Hamilton told Player.One. “This is a story of the Trollhunters. Jim’s portion of it is only the most recent. When you start digging a little deeper and seeing what Kanjigar’s life was like and Deya’s life was like ... The challenges and victories and the sacrifices they had to make, all of those moments aggregate and inform Jim’s experiences right now, and they just add to a greater even deeper appreciation of the show.”
Hamilton said “careful and astute” fans will find all kinds of answers -- even to questions they didn’t know to ask -- in both the Trollhunters graphic novel and books. Both Hamilton and co-writer Guggenheim strove to make The Secret History of Trollkind an integral piece of Trollhunters canon.
“One of the big remits we’ve given ourselves is admitting we are not trying to make new episodes of the TV show, we are trying to tell new stories of those characters. How can we use the tool of a novel or a comic book to tell it in a way that is unique to that specific medium? And how can we use that to add to the overall storytelling?” said Hamilton. “We didn’t want this comic to feel like something bolted on after the fact.”
So without further ado, here is our exclusive first look at pages 8-12 from The Secret History of Trollkind. If you missed the first batch of pages, the story picks up with Jim feeling anxious about facing Gunmar after a bad day of training. Blinky tells a story about Kanjigar the Courageous to help him feel more confident. The tale Blinky shares begins at a time before Kanjigar was chosen as Trollhunter, which means we’ll also get to learn more about Deya The Deliverer. Take a look below and let us know where you think this story is headed in the comments! For more on Trollhunters, check out our Q&A with Richard Hamilton.
Art by Timothy Green, coloring by Wes Dzioba and cover by Bill Sienkiewicz.