The Department of Truth is an ongoing Image Comics series by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds, with Aditya Bidikar’s lettering and a rotating group of artists, colorists, designers, and editors across its publication history. The series began with issue #1 in September 2020 and has expanded from Cole Turner’s recruitment into a multi-generational history of institutions that use belief to manage reality.
The publication order is not the same as the story’s chronology. Flashbacks to Truman, the Cold War, Lee Harvey Oswald, Hollywood, Elvis Presley, and the Department’s earlier hunters sit beside Cole’s present-day investigations. Guest-artist issues and backup stories also interrupt the central sequence. Reading the issues in publication order preserves the way the series reveals information: history is disclosed as a contested archive rather than delivered as a straight line.
Image’s official series archive lists #0 and #1–#38 as published and #39 as scheduled for October 28, 2026. Release dates, solicitations, and future material remain subject to change until the publisher marks them published.
The comic’s fictional continuity runs through Cole, Lee, the Department, Black Hat, manifestations, and the later White Hat conflict. Issue pages describe story events separately from publication records.
The series often presents documents, testimony, and institutional histories that characters believe to be true. Publication metadata does not certify those fictional claims.
The series draws on real conspiracy folklore, documented historical events, media history, and political symbolism. Image’s release pages provide the publication record; the fictional explanations remain fiction.
Launch and first volume
Image announced The Department of Truth in 2020 as a conspiracy thriller about Cole Turner, an FBI agent who discovers an organization covering up the material consequences of conspiracy belief. Issue #1 arrived September 30, 2020. The first five issues form The End of the World, later collected as Volume 1.
The opening run establishes the series’ core grammar: an apparently familiar conspiracy becomes a case; a Department explanation competes with a witness account; and the reader is asked to distinguish what happened from what the characters say happened. Martin Simmonds’ painted pages make the archive feel unstable from the beginning, while Tynion’s scripts use procedural dialogue to hide and reveal the impossible.
Early arcs and guest issues
Issues #6 and #7 are interstitial guest-artist chapters that expand the case field into UFO folklore and Men in Black stories. The City Upon a Hill begins with #8 and continues through #13, introducing Hawk’s field method, the Star-Faced Man feedback loop, and the Department’s struggle to classify thought-forms.
Free Country is represented by #6–#7 and #14–#17 in the working arc map, though the exact collected placement should follow each volume’s contents page. The arc’s publication sequence moves from UFO and cryptid stories into the occult history of Babalon, the Woman in Red, Jack Parsons, and L. Ron Hubbard.
Ministry and the return to Dallas
The Ministry of Lies material occupies issues #18–#22, placing Lee Harvey Oswald inside a fictional Soviet reality-management apparatus and bringing Cole and Ruby into the Fort Knox archive. The series uses the Cold War to make publication history itself feel politically unstable: a flashback can revise the meaning of a present-day panel, and a document can be evidence for more than one world.
After a publication hiatus, the series returned with #23 in June 2024 and revisited Dallas, the JFK assassination, and the Department’s public gamble. Issues #23–#27 develop the “What Your Country Can Do for You” material and the history of Huck and Marilyn Monroe. The later books extend the conflict into Matty’s discovery, Black Hat’s counter-offensive, Elvis, White Hat, and the Florida Wild Fiction operation.
Later publication and #0
Issue #0, published in September 2025, functions as a chapter zero rather than a replacement for #1. “Another National Anthem” introduces Hunter Hill and Charity Sinclair in 2016, while the “Suspicious Minds” backup moves through 1955 Mississippi and 1977 Memphis. The special issue widens the series’ concern from secret history to the internet generation and the political use of American identity.
Issues #34–#38 continue the late-run conflict. White Hat, Lee’s new Department, Black Hat, Hunky, Charity, Huck, and living dinosaurs all appear in the same publication era, but their story times remain layered. The official release record places #34 in November 2025, #35 in February 2026, #36 in March 2026, #37 in May 2026, and #38 in July 2026.
Current and scheduled material
Image’s series page lists #39 as arriving October 28, 2026. The solicitation describes Lee’s Department facing Cole’s White Hat, Martin Barker’s Black Hat, and a government bureaucracy, with Ben Templesmith returning for backup stories about Barker. That description is publication information and a scheduled premise, not a substitute for the issue’s eventual canon.
The series’ publication history should therefore keep three dates visible: the cover or solicitation date, the publisher’s release date, and the date an issue is verified as available. A delayed or revised solicitation belongs in the record with its status rather than being silently overwritten.
Creators and format
James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds remain the defining creative partnership. Aditya Bidikar’s lettering gives the series’ documents, broadcasts, and voices distinct registers. Guest artists including Alison Sampson, Ben Templesmith, Joshua Hixson, and others alter the texture of individual chapters without breaking the shared fictional system. Jordie Bellaire’s color work on “Suspicious Minds” is one example of a backup story receiving its own visual history.
Image publishes the series in standard comic issues and collects it in trade paperbacks, deluxe hardcovers, and a Wild Fictions hardcover. The publication format matters to continuity because bonus stories, backup material, and case files may appear in different locations when collected.
Publication boundary
The comic’s official release record is distinct from the fictional Department’s chronology. A 2026 issue can depict 1989, 1993, 1955, or an altered historical reality without changing its publication date. The reading order should preserve that difference and identify flashbacks in each issue’s continuity section.
References
- Image Comics series pageOfficial creators, collected editions, issue archive, and scheduled #39 listing.
- Image Comics releases archiveOfficial publication dates for the published and scheduled issues.
- Image Comics #39 release pageOfficial scheduled date, page count, creators, and solicitation for #39.