Press-idential Material

So this whole idea of doing PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL comic bios of both John McCain and Barack Obama has led to all kinds of surprise press in the past few days. So far, the actual pieces I've seen are there:

The New York Times
The Los Angeles Times
The National Enquirer
Reuters
The AP Wire
Time Magazine

It also got a mention on Fox News today, "CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" is going to run an interview taped at our office on Thursday's show in the 2-3 PM PST hour, and evidently Conan O'Brien makes a joke about it tonight, too (airing in a couple hours here).

Spotlight on Grimlock

The cover to the coming TRANSFORMERS SPOTLIGHT, VOL. 3 TPB, featuring the unused and very cool Marcelo Matere Grimmer image. Due in mid-September.

More Lockes, more Keys

One of the bigger things we discussed at Comic-Con was the fact that Joe Hill's LOCKE & KEY will continue beyond the initial six-issue series. We're going to do 24 more issues, and then likely a concluding graphic novel as well.

Gabriel Rodriguez is back for more with the second series, LOCKE & KEY: HEAD GAMES, which starts at the end of the year. The logo for this series and subsequent series will be slightly revised, too, with a different key in each, meaning that new keys will unlock new doors in stories to come.

The con went great with Joe--it was his first time in San Diego, and he really had a good time meeting with legions of fans, signing alongside Joe, and even doing a dramatic reading of some comic pages during his panel, too. It's a great a thing for us as it is fans of the book that he's doing more, since this title is really one of my very favorite things we've ever published.

Pictured here is Gabe's cover for HEAD GAMES #1.

Frazetta's Neanderthals

I've never done any non-IDW comics writing (unless you count a couple Marvel "Epic Comics" scripts for which I was paid a kill fee), and am understandably exclusive to IDW. But they were good enough to let me work around that in one case, so while this isn't IDW news, it's safe to say that whenever I mention it, it'll also result in some new IDW press, too.

Jay Fotos, the overseer of the entire FRAZETTA line of comics at Image, announced the new slate of titles for 2009, one of which I'm going to be writing and Jay will be coloring. He and I worked on the story, and we've got my old SHAUN OF THE DEAD cohort, Zach Howard, handling the art chores. Nat Jones is going to do a second cover, beyond the Frazetta pic pictured here.

It's going to be a helluva challenge, since we're doing the book dialogue-free. Which not only puts a lot on Zach, especially certain sequences, but it also requires more real scripting than your average comic. I'm pretty well through the script now, so we're likely looking at an early '09 launch for the book.

Our first Eisner win

We, and especially Dean Mullaney, who designed and packaged the book for us, won our first Eisner Award tonight:

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips: Complete Terry and the Pirates, vol. 1, by Milton Caniff (IDW)
.

Comic-Con vs Robot

The IDW booth, pre-opening. The robot lives!

Smell what we've got Cooke-ing

Darwyn Cooke's new project with us, announced tonight at Comic-Con. Click anywhere for the story.

Off to the show!

All the IDW news that's fit to print

Our first-ever NEW YORK TIMES coverage.

IDW's Comic-Con signing schedule

Here's the complete signing schedule for our week at Comic-Con, so anyone looking to meet Darwyn Cooke, Joe Hill, Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith, Ashley Wood, Peter David, Brian Lynch, Gabriel Rodriguez, and the many others, come on by and say hey.

BOOTH #1705.

Bernie notice

Figured I'd catch up on posting some new art today, especially before next week's Comic-Con derails the schedule a bit. Here's the just-received final cover art for DEAD SHE SAID #3, the concluding issue of Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson's noir-horror tale. Art by Bernie, colors by Grant Goleash.

Byrne notice

In addition to the big 500-page b&w COMPLETE NEXT MEN collection we did, next year we're also going to produce an oversize, full-color hardcover collection of John Byrne's NEXT MEN series. John produced a new cover for the book, too, the first time he's drawn these characters in some time. Now to talk him into doing full new NM comics...

Ad Hox Committee

Ben Templesmith has been Flickr'ing his new comic, WELCOME TO HOXFORD, for a little while now, so I encourage you who want to see more to head there. But for those of ya coming to Comic-Con next week, here's a look at the cover to the con-exclusive WELCOME TO HOXFORD ASHCAN that we'll have at the IDW booth (#1705). Ben'll be there signing it all weekend, and in addition to 8 pages of story and art, it's got all kinds of exclusive sketches and character bios and such, too. The hard facts:

EXCLUSIVE/PRODUCT: Welcome to Hoxford Ashcan
ITEM DESCRIPTION: Eisner Award-nominated artist Ben Templesmith presents the first look at his all-new, horrific series, Welcome to Hoxford, in this 16-page Ashcan featuring 8 pages of story and exclusive character bios and artwork. Templesmith will be signing the Ashcan throughout the duration of the show.
Price: $10
Production Run: 1,000
Availability: duration of show, limited to availability

Covering First Night

In honor of the release of ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL, VOL. 1 HC (as well as SPIKE: AFTER THE FALL #1), here's the new art for the VOL. 2 HC from Alex Garner (covering all the "First Night" tales).

Are you there, caller?

On Sunday, July 20, I'll be doing another segment on the radio show Fictional Frontiers. The show airs at 11 AM EST, 8 AM PST. Here's the official word from the site about it:

Chris Ryall, Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, and occasional comic book writer of IDW Publishing. visits and discusses the latest from IDW Comics. Known as the most responsive and fan-conscious of publishers, Chris will take your calls LIVE, as he details the future plans of tentpole titles like Transformers, Star Trek, and Locke & Key. Also...some exclusive announcements leading into the San Diego Comic-Con.

We're also gonna talk about THE DARK KNIGHT and other pop-culture things, but they do a call-in segment as well, so I invite anyone to ring up the show and ask anything at all you want. More info can be found here:

Don't forget to listen to Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib...each and every Sunday at 11:00 AM EST on WNJC 1360 AM-Philadelphia (www.wnjc1360.com). And remember: we can be heard live on the web at: wnjc.duxpond.com/.

The call-in number is 856-227-1360 for anyone who might wanna give a ring.

IDW's Comic-Con exclusives

Starting today, I'll run a different exclusive we'll have at the IDW booth (#1705) during the show), in addition to the ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS statues I showed last week. Up today, a nice, free 48-page comic from CHIAROSCURO creator Troy Little:


EXCLUSIVE/PRODUCT: Angora Napkin promo
ITEM DESCRIPTION: Award-winning creator Troy Little (Chiaroscuro) presents a huge, and free!—ashcan debuting his latest creation, Angora Napkin. This special 48-page comic will be available at the IDW booth until we run out!
Price: Free
Production Run: 1,000
Availability: duration of show, limited to availability

IDW's new releases for July 16

Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 1 HC
Fallen Angel, Vol. 5: Red Horse Riding
Sparrow Box Set
Sparrow, Vol. 8
Spike: After the Fall #1
Star Trek: Assignment Earth #3 (2nd printing)
Tank Girl: Visions of Booga #3
Transformers Spotlight: Hardhead
Transformers Movie Sequel: The Reign of Starscream #3
Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse TPB (3rd printing)

Spotlight on Casey

A few weeks ago, I posted a retailer-exclusive cover for yesterday's TRANSFORMERS: ALL HAIL MEGATRON #1. It was U.K. retailer Apocalypse Comics' variant that recreated Brian Bolland's classic THE KILLING JOKE image. That cover, by artist Casey Coller, looked like this:



Based on the quality of Casey's work there, we signed him on for a special Spotlight issue written by AHM's Shane McCarthy. Who is it? Well, the image above is the only hint I'm giving here. But if you want to know before we talk it up at Comic-Con in two weeks, there's another way. Mario at Apocalypse Comics included Casey as a special guest at the London Film and Comic Con next weekend. Just click the link--there's an amazing array of guests from film, TV and now comics, too. Casey will be announcing the book there and showing some of his kick-ass pages from it (coming in December), too.

Zombies vs Robots vs Comic-Con

On sale at the IDW booth at Comic-Con. Actually available for pre-order through the IDW site now, too, but if you're coming to the show, this will be on display at the booth and ready to be taken home and raised as your own.

The 6' version that will be in our booth ain't for sale even if you had a flatbed truck available to get it home. That one's gonna have to be seen to be believed.

I got an advance copy of the full ZvR trade paperback collection that we should be able to have at the show, too. It's not in stores until August 8 but we're working on getting advance copies at the show... it collects the three prequel stories, the initial 2-part miniseries and the 3-part ZvRvA sequel, all wrapped in an all-new painted Ash Wood cover. It came out kind of awesome, as did this robot that Ash masterminded and painted. Don't get me wrong--he might've been nice enough to put my name on the box, but this thing is all him. Still, I'm all too happy to be able to scribble my name on some boxes if it comes up. Should be a fun show.

VISONS Quest

On our new TANK GIRL series, written by creator Alan C. Martin and drawn by Rufus Dayglo and Christian Krank (the best-named art team in comics), have just been killing on their pages--a great mix of Jamie Hewlett's style and a look and feel all their own, too. Here're some pages from issue 3 just to further illustrate what I mean.

Readers of the Lost ARK II

See what I did there?

Anyway, also out this week is the second volume of TRANSFORMERS: THE ARK. And as requested by one of this blog's readers, here's the final cover and a page from the book. (Carlos, the back cover isn't much to look at so I spared you that)

Yo, Joe fans

Since a certain Web site decided to run a story before they were supposed to, word on our G.I. JOE series is already out there. So let's run with that and let you hear replies from me directly, rather than unauthorized web postings. First 10 people who ask any JOE question on their mind, I'll answer away. Just head here, quick.

IDW's new releases for July 10

Alright, post-holiday, let's get back to a regular schedule here. This week's new comics release on Thursday, not Wednesday. Out this week from IDW, we have:

Badger Saves the World TPB
CSI: Dying in the Gutters Digest Edition
CSI: Secret Identity Digest Edition
Doctor Who Classic, Vol. 1 TPB
The Dreamland Chronicles #1
Dead She Said #2
Gene Simmons Zipper TPB
Michael Recycle-2nd printing
Sparrow Slipcase (featuring artbooks 1-5 plus a bonus double-sied, all-new Ash Wood sketch book #0, too)
Snaked TPB
Classic Transformers, Vol. 2
Transformers: All Hail Megatron #1
Transformers: The Ark, Vol. 2
Transformers: Saga of the Allspark #1


The big news this week being the debut of ALL HAIL MEGATRON, our game-changing new TRANSFORMERS series. In fact, let's celebrate that with a 5-page preview here.

Frank Castle's inspiration

Don't think I've shown much of our current MACK BOLAN series here so let's change that with a 5-page preview of the issue being released tomorrow. Art courtesy of SL Gallant.