The Buffyverse is growing! First Joss Whedon gave us (and still is) Buffy: Season 8, then Angel: After the Fall, and now IDW has announced Spike: After the Fall. Yes our favorite blonde haired baddy is getting his own mini-series.

Spike: After the Fall is a four-part series beginning next month, and it tells the tale of what happened in the intervening months since that alleyway cataclsym. Along for the ride in this series are Illyria, who has a tendency to revert back to Fred at inopportune times, as well as Angel’s Dragon, and a new cast of characters as well. Most importantly, the series introduces a character who will come to be see as Spike’s arch-nemesis. Even more than Angel, we mean.

Presiding over the series will be Angel: After the Fall writer Brian Lynch and artist Franco Urru, who provides two special first-issue Spike covers offered in a 50/50 ratio—one featuring Spike’s human face, one in all its vamped-out fury! Aussie art team The Sharp Brothers offer a special “grindhouse”-inspired incentive cover, too!

About the overall “After the Fall” arc, writer Lynch said “Joss laid the groundwork with me, a very specific outline, and now I’m carrying it out. He did the heavy-lifting in the beginning, and now I’m the spokesman, I’m the mouthpiece.”

“I cannot express how great this is coming out. I didn’t want to dilute Angel: After the Fall or the previous Urru/Lynch Spike tales,” he continued, “so we didn’t plan this until we saw whether or not it would work. It worked. It works soooo well. This is gonna be goooood. All the hell! None of the Angels!”

Spike: After the Fall #1 will be in stores on July 16, as will the first hardcover collection of Angel: After the Fall.