Thursday, March 26, 2009

ComicMix Tape


We announced today that we partnered with former First Comics founder/current ComicMix.com founder Mike Gold to bring to print the various titles Mike's released over at ComicMix. The news makes sense to us since we originally brought back JON SABLE FREELANCE and GRIMJACK with Mike back in 2005. But beyond that, it makes me personally happy since SABLE, E-MAN and other original First comics were my first real foray into non-superhero comics when I was a kid. Loved 'em then and I'm happy to be continuing this venture now.

And since it never takes much prodding for me to risk embarrassment and post old pictures I drew as a teenager with felt pens, this seems like the right time to show my ancient tribute to Joe Staton's E-MAN below the text of the press release itself. We'll be leading off with new SABLE, GRIMJACK, and HAMMER OF THE GODS projects among many others to come, but you never know about E-MAN himself, if I get my way...

IDW and ComicMix Join Forces

Renowned comics publisher to distribute online comics in print form

SAN DIEGO, CA (March 25, 2009) – IDW Publishing, a leading publisher of comic books and graphic novels, has begun an innovative partnership with ComicMix.com, a free website offering new and classic comics. Through this multi-year agreement, IDW will publish graphic novels, books and comics for ComicMix.com properties, enabling both companies to expand their offerings to customers and retailers, and combine their audience reach.

“ComicMix has a great line up of original and classic brands that are currently only available online, and despite the shift to the virtual world, there is still something unmistakable about reading a real-life book” said Greg Goldstein, chief operating officer of IDW. “IDW is known for producing some of the highest quality books in our industry, and we are looking forward to offering this to fans of ComicMix properties.”

Beginning in the fall of 2009, IDW will release trade paperbacks of ComicMix comics, as well as monthly comics, including many new stories that have previously been only available online at ComicMix.com. Initial titles will include GrimJack: The Manx Cat by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman, Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden by Mike Grell, and Hammer of the Gods by Mark Wheatley and Mike Avon Oeming, among others.

“This is a bit of a homecoming for many of us at ComicMix, because we have had a professional relationship with IDW Publishing over the past several years,” ComicMix Editor-In-Chief Mike Gold noted. “We’re honored to be among such first-rate comics and graphic novels. Quite frankly, I don’t think the ComicMix properties could find a better publishing home than IDW.”

The partnership with ComicMix allows IDW to distribute comics via mobile devices, increasing the company’s growing digital, downloadable publishing program, which already includes several major titles such as Star Trek: Countdown and Ghostbusters.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's great news. I was wondering when Grell's new Sable story would finally be published. Do you think there will be further trades of the original Sable series? I think there were a few issues left that weren't reprinted (along with the follow-up Sable series Grell had little if anything to do with).

Glen

Chris Ryall said...

We'd hit a point on those reprints where the cost to produce them just wasn't working with the sales, so I don't know. If the new series works and we can revisit that and finish the run, I would like to get them all done. I don't know that we'd also get to the Marv Wolfman/Bill Jaaska relaunch book, but it would be nice to finish the initial Grell run.

Anonymous said...

I figured as much. Thanks for the update Chris. They were great books and I appreciate IDW getting them back into print.

Glen