Dark Horse has pulled the plug on Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, making November’s issue #8 the last in the series, the anthology’s main artist revealed today.

Steve Rolston, in a LiveJournal posting and an e-mail to his fans, announced the series would be relaunched “in a series of more affordable packages,” including a six-issue mini-series, The Escapists, due in stores in July.

“While this does mean you’ll have to wait until the summer, it also means you won’t have to wait as long between issues and the price tag will be much more affordable for those who weren’t keen on the anthology format,” Rolston said.

Rolston’s announcement indicates The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #9, due in stores this Wednesday, will not hit shelves after all. No word on what will happen to the stories completed for that book.

Brian K. Vaughan, writer for The Escapists, said in a forum posting that the decision was made “because Dark Horse felt that our story deserved a wider audience, and Mr. Chabon agreed that a relaunched monthly series (with a significantly more affordable cover price) would help us reach exactly that.”

“It’s a drag that people will have to wait a few more months to see Steve Rolston and Jason Alexander’s stuff, but I honestly think this might be the best book I’ve ever been a part of, so I’m grateful that DH is working hard to get it into many more hands,” Vaughan said.

Michael Chabon, in an e-mail, said he was “just glad and grateful to Dark Horse that they’re sticking with it at all and impressed that they’re planning to honor all their outstanding commitments to the writers and artists who had already been hired to do work for the quarterly.”

He added he was happy more readers would get to see Vaughan’s story line, saying “it’s just such great stuff.”

Rolston indicated the first two issues of The Escapists would feature the first part of the story arc already seen in the current anthology. Issue #1 will feature Philip Bond’s art, and issue #2, due in August, will feature Rolston.

Chabon had indicated almost a month ago that changes were in the works, but had said at the time they would probably be “nothing as drastic as outright cancellation.” The Escapist had suffered poor sales since its inception, selling only 4,594 copies of issue #8, less than half of its first issue in February 2004.