Bad Idea is back.
The comics publisher – led by former Valiant publisher Dinesh Shamdasani – launched back in February of 2020 – an innocent time when we all felt very different about the world and comics publishers were launching left and right. An imprint focused on single issue comics, this was, as you might guess, kind of a terrible time to launch single issue comics. BUT, somehow they stuck it out, publishing for about a year, until in June 2021 they abruptly announced that “Bad Idea is ending.”
And they did stop publishing. But no one who knows Shamdasani really thought they were going away forever, and indeed, they held a by all account fabulous tiki party at SDCC, and just a few weeks back they announced “Bad Idea is back!” And not just back but bringing the brags!
Not just back, but bigger, badder and filled to the brim with comics. We may have been “over”, but we certainly weren’t idle. Team BAD IDEA was hard at work building a massive reservoir of new comics. So massive that one slate of books could not contain it all.
Introducing BAD IDEA TWO — a mammoth two-part slate of mind-blowing comic books that are so staggering they have to be seen to be believed. These are the types of comics you can only make if you’re solely focused on creating them and not distracted by the printing or selling or marketing.
That last phrase is laugh making, as you will see. I’ve been on a three week semi-sabbatical, so I haven’t had a chance to dig into Bad Idea’s return. But I’m back too so let’s go!
Along with a return to publishing – with a slate of seven titles, which we’ll get to – Bad Idea is continuing some of the complicated and controversial marketing stunts from their first run. The first run included only selling the comics at “approved” retailers, doing shock drops of unexpected titles, and other limits on orders and stuff designed to make these single issues collectibles as much as readables.
For Bad Idea 2, they are back with just as many rules, regulations and ordering procedures, and I’m sure I missed a few in this round-up. “Not distracted by the printing or selling or marketing” only if you don’t read all these emails!
What about the books? Well, it’s a strong line-up, as evidenced by the creators and sample art. But it is definitely a new approach to announcing your new line up. Each series is described by only a few genre descriptors – “WAR DRAMA THRILLER ROMANCE” – and if this was intended as a meta commentary on all comic book marketing, well, you hit the nail on the head. Each announcement is accompanied by a LOT of preview art, and let’s be honest, this is a more effective way of letting you know what the books is about than reams of promo copy, even if it is “the best work of soanso’s career.”
But then, they didn’t need much promo for these because the idea was for Bad Idea fans to pre-order them sight unseen! Read on for details.
I should say that all of these series look very well done, and also wacky AF. The rather stylized logo for ORC ISLAND – which seems to be about female orc warriors who don’t wear sports bras – garnered some controversy. It IS hard to read, but so are a lot of metal logos upon which it was based – and it was illegible on purpose. Because it’s a bad idea right?
Anyway on to the lineup!
THEY’RE ALL TERRIBLE
Written by MATT KINDT
Art & Covers by RAMON VILLALOBOS
Color Art by TAMRA BONVILLAIN
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
FOUR ISSUES IN TWO PARTS | BI-MONTHLY
$7.99 EACH | 32 PGS. | NO ADS | BEGINNING December 14, 2022
CONCLUDING IN BAD IDEA TWO: PART TWO
EPIC FANTASY, ACTION, ADVENTURE
THE ENDS #1
Written by DAVID LAPHAM & MARIA LAPHAM
Art by DAVID LAPHAM
Cover by LEWIS LaROSA & MAT LOPES
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
THREE ISSUES | WEEKLY!
IN GLORIOUS BLACK AND WHITE
$7.99 EACH | 40 PGS. | NO ADS | BEGINNING January 11, 2023
WAR, DRAMA, THRILLER, ROMANCE
ESCAPE FROM WYOMING #1
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art, Colors & Letters by JORGE MONLONGO
Cover by TOM FOWLER
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
THREE ISSUES | MONTHLY
$7.99 EACH | 48 PGS. | NO ADS | BEGINNING November 2, 2022
SCI-FI, WESTERN, ACTION COMEDY
THE FINDER
Written by CHRISTOS GAGE
Art by TOMAS GIORELLO
Color Art by DIEGO RODRIGUEZ
Cover by CHRIS JOHNSON & ANDREW DALHOUSE
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
A ONE-SHOT GUARANTEED TO SHOCK
$7.99 | 40 PGS. | NO ADS | ON SALE February 1, 2023
SUPER-HERO, HORROR, SCI-FI, ESPIONAGE
*** WEREWOLF x SOCIETY OF FEARLESS FRONTIERSMEN ***
WEREWOLF
Written by PETER MILLIGAN
Art by ROBERT GILL
SOCIETY OF FEARLESS FRONTIERSMEN
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art by TOMAS GIORELLO
Color Art by DIEGO RODRIGUEZ
Cover by LEWIS LAROSA with DIEGO RODRIGUEZ
A BELLY-BURSTING DOUBLE-SHOT WITH A SECRET
$9.99 | 64 PGS. (SQUAREBOUND) | NO ADS | ON SALE December 21, 2022
SUPERNATURAL, SURVIVAL HORROR, THRILLER
ORC ISLAND #1
Written by JOSHUA DYSART
Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI
Color Art by MATT HOLLINGSWORTH
Cover by LEWIS LaROSA & MATT HOLLINGSWORTH
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
FOUR ISSUES | WEEKLY!
$7.99 EACH | 48 PGS. | NO ADS | BEGINNING November 2, 2022
DARK FANTASY, HEIST, ADVENTURE
BURNING MAN #1
Written by PETER MILLIGAN
Art by JUAN JOSÉ RYP
Color Art by ANDREW DALHOUSE
Cover by ADAM POLLINA
PLUS: An All-New BAD IDEA B-SIDE
POSSIBLY INFINITE | POTENTIALLY ENDLESS
$9.99 EACH | 40 PGS. | NO ADS | BEGINNING December 28, 2022
SUPERNATURAL HORROR, CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE, MYSTERY, SUSPENSE
WHEW!
Ok so launching seven new titles by established creators is not unprecedented in these times, but Bad Idea is doing things a little different. To wit, you could get the books – all seven! – by ordering on Pre Order day, which had a lot of rules, most of them segt by individual shops.
Here’s how the BAD IDEA TWO: PART ONE PRE-ORDER DAY event works:1 – BAD IDEA TWO: PART ONE is made up of seven titles (15 issues) on-sale between November and February.
2 – Connect with any BAD IDEA Destination Store (in-person or by any other means accepted by the store).
3 – Pre-order all seven of the BAD IDEA TWO: PART ONE titles with your store. You are pre-ordering blind. No titles. No story details. No creative teams. Only the cover price and number of issues will be released. Consult your store for their pre-order requirements.
4 – If you’re one of the first 10 people to pre-order all seven titles at your store, you will be awarded a swanky BAD IDEA TWO: PART ONE redemption sticker.
5 – The sticker can be used to redeem, from BAD IDEA, an extra, alternate, and exclusive story choice for one of the soon-to-be-revealed books in the BAD IDEA TWO: PART ONE line-up. WTF is a story choice? Oh boy, just you wait.
Just you wait indeed. Just 10 people get a sticker – and there are 200 Bad Idea stores, so you can figure out the initial print runs. If this is intended as a meta commentary on speculators scooping up books at shops, well I guess it succeeded? But the “redemption stickers” have since been put to other uses.
Six BAD IDEA stickers defacing six Marvel books that are now ready to go out to the first batch of @keycollectorapp contest winners! pic.twitter.com/zCdXlXzuhC
— Dinesh Shamdasani (@dinesh_s) September 12, 2022
“Six BAD IDEA stickers defacing six Marvel books that are now ready to go out to the first batch of @keycollectorapp contest winners!” Shamdasani tweeted.
This sounded terrifying to start, but I found the rules in another tweet:
The laziest contest giveaway of all time could be yours!
BAD IDEA has added a word balloon sticker to 20 Marvel Comics and given them to @keycollectorapp to give away. Sign up in the app for a chance to win!!
Other prizes include a copy of Conceptual Funnies #1 CGC 2.5… pic.twitter.com/pJnkDOlLkf
— Dinesh Shamdasani (@dinesh_s) September 5, 2022
“The laziest contest giveaway of all time could be yours! BAD IDEA has added a word balloon sticker to 20 Marvel Comics and given them to @keycollectorapp to give away. Sign up in the app for a chance to win!! Other prizes include a copy of Conceptual Funnies #1 CGC 2.5…”
Bad Idea has done some other novel marketing stunts for the relaunch, including a new 8 page comic by Mark Waid and David Lapham found only in this month’s Diamond Previews. The blurb for that provided another meta commentary:
MARK WAID & DAVID LAPHAM Drop A Brand-New BAD IDEA Story Exclusively In This Month’s Diamond Previews Catalog — But Is It A First Appearance?
Is it a first appearance? I don’t know, and don’t really care but maybe someone somewhere does.
Bad Idea V 1.0 was led by Shamdasani and his fellow Valiant ex-pats editor Warren Simons and chief marketer Hunter Gorinson. Both have since departed. Atom Freeman has been doing some marketing for them since then, but I’m not quite certain who took over editorial – but they have a good rolodex.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from Bad Idea over the next few months. They are full of ideas for sure…whether they are bad or good, time will tell.
I was interested in their first wave of books but never got to buy them, for obvious reasons. 2 years later and I don’t even remember what those books were.The same will happen with this wave. I hope the creators are paid well for their work that will, for all intents and purposes, never see the light of day.
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