Oni Press has announced some special details about the first volume of The Life After by writer Joshua Hale Fialkov and artist Gabo. First up, for a limited time only, Volume 1 is a $9.99 comic shop exclusive with an exclusive cover for shops. But, what is the series about?

Jude’s life is nothing special. It seems like every day is just a repeat of the last one, until one day, he meets a woman and can suddenly see into her past — revealing that he is actually in Purgatory for suicides. Now that he’s awake, he and the legendary Ernest Hemingway are on the path to change things in the afterlife for the better. Of course, that might not sit very well with the bigwigs down below or up above. Can just a few people change the course of billions of souls? The first volume collects the first five issues of the ongoing series.

The Life After manages to be poignant, weird, and somehow really funny while tackling big issues like morality, religion, and how to be a decent person. Jude could be any of us, just trying to make sense of his situation and make the world a better place. Of course, his world happens to be the afterlife, and most of us aren’t joined in our journey by the one-and-only Ernest Hemingway and a ticked-off Victorian woman searching for her daughter. It’s a story both universal and completely unique.

In addition to the exclusive release there’s also a Free copy of the Diamond Exclusive variant of the first issue with every TPB purchase and Exclusive #6 Variant only available in conjunction with the TPB for shops that participate. For every trade you order, you can order one exclusive variant of issue six.