Writer Jeremy Lambert and artist Claire Roe are teaming up again. Their new ongoing series, The Caretaker, launches from Ignition Press on February 10, 2027 with a double-length first issue, as announced in an AIPT exclusive. The pair previously worked together on Scott Snyder’s Dark Spaces.
The premise starts with real history. In 1976, Neil Armstrong led a caving expedition into the Andes, following rumors of hidden extraterrestrial artifacts. “That’s a true story,” the publisher’s description says. “Officially, the mission was a failure. That is where the lie begins.”
The series follows graduate assistant and aspiring astronaut Jenny Brennan, whose discovery on that expedition binds her life, and the fate of humanity, to an alien god called the Caretaker, who warns that our galaxy is about to die. Under its influence, Jenny becomes the public face of NASA’s space program while secretly piloting a world-saving suicide mission beyond the known universe, a burden later carried by her ailing father and her two sons. When a conspiracy theorist gets close to the truth, family ties pull Jenny home, and Earth’s “emotional gravity could jeopardize its survival in the Caretaker’s own cosmic family feud,” according to the official description.
Lambert calls the book a “love letter from a black hole.” “There’s a space shuttle that doesn’t exist, astronauts that were never born, and lights are going out all across the universe,” he said. “A little girl from Maryland will make it to the stars and find out who they’re hiding.”
Roe described the series as tapping into “the existential dread of life, of losing everyone you love, of losing pieces of yourself,” adding, “The clock is ticking.” Editor Maggie Howell said the creators had developed the series “for years.”
Eisner Award winner Jordie Bellaire handles colors, and Becca Carey letters. The Caretaker #1 has two open-order covers, by Roe and Sam Wolfe Connelly, plus a 1-in-10 retailer incentive cover by Nick Derington.
Dark Spaces came from Scott Snyder, who is having a huge year of his own. See how Scott Snyder wrote 7 of 2026’s top 10 comics so far.
