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At his panel tonight at C2E2, Mark Waid revealed the details of his ambitious new Thrillbent digital comics portal. It’s a new entrant in the original digital comics race, but one with some heavy-hitting talent behind it—in addition to Waid, John Rogers is a founder, and artist Peter Krause, who previously teamed with Waid for IRREDEEMABLE, will be collaborating on a new strip with him.

Award-winning comics and graphic-novel writer Mark Waid announced today at The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) that he will be launching Thrillbent, his new digital comics venture, on May 1, 2012.

Waid, along with LEVERAGE TV show helmer John Rogers, has created the Thrillbent website (www.thrillbent.com) — “Comics For The Rest Of Us” — as a one-stop showcase for all-new creator-owned digital comics by a number of established and up-and-coming talents, all eager to work in a wide and eclectic variety of genres. “I’ve been championing the digital frontier for some time,” says Waid, whose most recent work has included spearheading Marvel Entertainment’s INFINITE COMICS digital-only offerings. “Most ‘digital’ comics offered today are just repurposed scans of pages created for print. Comics designed specifically for tablets, smartphones and computer screens, however, can do things with pacing, with color and art, with tools of graphic storytelling that print can’t achieve, all while retaining their integrity as comics and not ‘wannabe animation.’ When done right, digital comics are a revolutionary new storytelling medium.”

Thrillbent’s first regular feature will be a new, free weekly series produced by Waid and artist Peter Krause, the team behind the Eisner- and Harvey Award-nominated IRREDEEMABLE, with additional weekly series by Waid, Rogers and others soon to follow. For more information, email [email protected].

ABOUT MARK WAID: Mark Waid, a New York Times bestselling author, has written thousands of comic books and graphic novels in his 28-year career. His award-winning graphic novel with artist Alex Ross, KINGDOM COME, is one of the best-selling comics collections of all time. Currently, he writes DAREDEVIL for Marvel Comics, IRREDEEMABLE for BOOM! Studios, and ROCKETEER: CARGO OF DOOM for IDW. Waid maintains a process blog at markwaid.com that is full of advice and discussion for experienced print-comics professionals and aspiring digital-comics creators.

ABOUT JOHN ROGERS: John Rogers’ 16-year career is built on successes in numerous media. He’s written and produced a wide range of television series including COSBY and the animated show JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES; most recently he co-created the hit caper series LEVERAGE for TNT. His film work includes over twenty scripts and rewrites including THE CORE and TRANSFORMERS. John has also worked in role-playing games and comics; his relaunch of BLUE BEETLE with Keith Giffen was critically acclaimed and a fan favorite. He’s currently running the fifth season of LEVERAGE and is developing several online projects. In case the entertainment business falls through, John has a Physics degree to fall back on.

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1 COMMENT

  4. Web-comics people have been doing stuff like this for years. What’s new, I suppose, is that a “hot name” print comics writer is spearheading this venture.

    There is currently only a little bit of overlap between web-comics fandom and comic-book fandom. I will be watching to see whether Waid brings the two groups closer together, or whether his portal will be like those Anglo-retiree enclaves you find in parts of Latin America.

  5. Excited to see this happen. Much luck to Waid, Rodgers and co. on this venture. Waids’ site is a daily place to visit for me.

  6. @Scott Bieser. I resemble that remark! I am Anglo but not a retiree and I live in Latin America(Brazil), there are no enclaves here, for that you need to go to Florida. So by that we can see that MArk’s portal will be a successful and highly lucrative endevour for all involved.

    :oP :oD