Valiant Comics – whose output has been slowed to a bare one title a month, if that, over the last year – has announced a new partnership with Alien Books that will see Alien take over publishing Valiant’s characters. It’s not clear if it’s a licensing deal or not, but we’re told that Alien will take over publishing Valiant comics, graphic novels, trades, omnibuses and potentially even more formats in the coming months. Popverse reports, and The Beat has confirmed, that some remaining Valiant staffers will stay on to work on the transition.
Called the “birth of a new Valiant era!”, the move is aimed at growing Valiant’s output and is one of a number of licensing deals the company had made of late to keep its library of characters in the public eye while publishing has slowed down.
Alien Books is run by director Matias Timarchi, and claims a 25-year publishing history. It bills itself as a “cutting-edge New York-based comic book publisher” with a line up of foreign licenses, and recent books by Howard Chaykin and more. It also has a bumper.
In a statement, Timarchi wrote: “Being able to collaborate on the creation of new stories with Valiant, the third largest connected superhero universe, is truly a dream come true. As a lifelong superhero fan and self-professed geek, the opportunity to work with these incredible characters fills me with boundless enthusiasm. Our goal is to expand the entire Valiant universe by crafting new books that will delight longtime fans while also innovating to engage a new generation of readers interested in webtoons, manga, and digital storytelling experiences. We are immensely proud that Valiant has selected us as their new partners for this thrilling venture, and we are excited to embark on a new chapter in Valiant’s illustrious history.”
Valiant’s President of Consumer Products, Promotions & Ad Sales, Russ Brown, said “We remain fiercely committed to publishing Valiant comics and expanding our publishing line in ways we’ve never seen before. In partnership with Alien Books, we see an opportunity to push the boundaries of comic book publishing to help develop our incredible IP in exciting new ways for a rapidly expanding global audience.”
It also marks yet another evolution in Valiant’s history. Initially launched in the ’90s with a mix of classic licenses and brand new superheroes, and led by editor Jim Shooter, Valiant achieved a high degree of success in the first Chromium Age before fading away in the ’90s Comics Crash and declaring bankruptcy in 2000.
Valiant fan Dinesh Shamdasani revived the company in 2007, along with Jason Kothari and a group of investors, launching an ambitious reboot featuring X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Archer & Armstrong, and Shadowman in 2012. While publishing seemed to be holding its own, Valiant also began an aggressive effort to explore opportunities in other media, particularly film and television, with a Valiant Cinematic Universe (VCU) in partnership with Sony announced at one point.
It was all moving along until 2018, when DMG Entertainment – a global media and entertainment company based in Beijing, China founded by media mogul Dan Mintz – took over the company and Shamdasani left. DMG had originally been brought on as an investor. Publishing gradually became more and more sporadic, with many layoffs shrinking the company down further, and a line of NFTs ended up with fans calling it a scam. The VCU ended up being only a Bloodshot movie starring Vin Diesel that had the misfortune to open the week that the Pandemic began.
Since then Valiant has become more “Shadow publisher” than “publisher of Shadowman” with, as we noted, a tiny trickle of published comics. They do retain a huge library of characters and IP – something that is still at a premium in the media world – and a small but devoted group of fans. The partnership with Alien – which as we mentioned is basically outsourcing publishing comics to a company with more resources – is the kind of deal that has long been discussed for other distressed publishers, but hasn’t really been tried yet. While this seems to mark the end of this run of Valiant Comics, just who and what Alien Books is will be discussed in the coming weeks.
There will definitely be more to come on this one!
Social media links for Alien and Valiant:
Alien Books:
Website: www.alienbooks.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/
Valiant Entertainment:
Website: www.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/valiantcomics
Twitter: www.twitter.com/valiantcomics
Instagram: www.instagram.com/
Newsletter: www.valiantentertainment.com/
I for one am genuinely excited that “[they] see an opportunity to push the boundaries of comic book publishing to help develop our incredible IP in exciting new ways for a rapidly expanding global audience.”
Because that is a thing. Yes.
-B
Brian, if they can become thought leaders by exploring the synergy of ideation from visual storytelling, then why shouldn’t they try to increase brand awareness through the organic reach of immersive deliverables?
If this somehow succeeds, Discovery-WB and Disney will be taking notice. But I don’t expect it to succeed.
What will be interesting is if Alien is able to pull in the same caliber of creators to work on the characters. Valiant had a history of being able to pull in creators like Jeff Lemire to do books, and was often able to maintain a healthy roster of artists as well. I’m skeptical, but we shall see.
Why can’t they pay their talent? They can do this but they can’t pay talent?! Don’t support this! DMG has more than enough money. Is this to screw over more creatives?! Don’t applaud this it should be mocked and shamed!
Just looking at Alien Book’s social media, it seems Alien used to be StoneBot Comics that was publishing through places like Titan and Red5. They did an OK job deleting any tweets referencing StoneBot (not sure why the name change) but there’s still enough there linking the two. That may be where the “25 years” part comes into play.
The 25 year comes from publishing DC Comics, Marvel, The Walking Dead, Hellboy, Star Wars, etcetera, in Argentina by the publishing companies Gargola and OVNI Press.
sad.
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