Bad Idea releases details on their first title, ENIAC by Kindt and Braithwaite

 

Last week we told you about the newest comics company, the cheekily titled Bad Idea, started by a group of Valiant ex-pats. Today they have officially released the first information on their first title, ENIAC, by Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT), Doug Braithwaite (Justice), colorist Diego Rodriguez (X-O Manowar), and cover artist Lewis LaRosa (Punisher MAX).

ENIAC #1 arrives May 6th in an oversized, 40-page  format – and in a 20-store minified distribution channel. You can read all the details on the title below, but the general genre seems to be SF – in an interview with me for PW’s More to Come podcast, publisher Hunter Gorinson compared the tone of the line to DIVINITY, a SF title from Valiant that was actually pretty good. 

Plot synopsis below:

At the height of World War II, the world’s most ingenious minds began a race to create a super-weapon capable of ending the war with the push of a button. One of those projects gave us the atom bomb…and another produced the world’s first supercomputer: ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)– an immeasurably complex mathematical model that targeted the Axis war machine by calculating missile trajectories and troop deployments.

Everybody knows that. It’s real-life American history.

Or so we were told.

On August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.

Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki… Only President Truman wasn’t the one who gave order.

It was ENIAC.

In the Allies’ determination to end the war, they had accidentally created the world’s first autonomous machine intelligence…which had quickly deduced that one bomb wouldn’t be enough.

But ENIAC’s real plan was only just beginning…

Now, 75 years later, an encrypted countdown has just been detected in Earth’s satellite network and mankind only has three days left before ENIAC launches every weapon in the planet’s nuclear arsenal simultaneously. With few options and even less time, the Secretary of Defense has just given two covert operatives the most important mission in human history: kill ENIAC.

The release on Enaic also includes more about their “renegade” self distribution plan:

BAD IDEA’s mantra is “don’t do anything unless it’s special.” First and foremost, that means that we’re gong to produce a limited number of series at any given time – no more than one to two single issues per month – featuring A-level comics storytelling by some of the industry’s best and most respected creators. And each time one shows up in your store, it should be kind of a big deal. 

That’s because our comics feature no variants, won’t be released digitally, and will not be collected into trade paperbacks, hardcovers, or other bookshelf formats. Monthly comic books, sold by comic book stores, are what we do.

Part and parcel with that commitment, our books will come in a pristinely designed, prestige-format package featuring deluxe matte-laminate cardstock covers, heavy-duty interior paperstock, and lots of pictures with little words on the inside – all for the standard $3.99 cover price.

Lastly – and this part is important – we’re going to get things going by self-distributing our series to a select list of just 20 participating comic shop retailers. From May 2020 onward, we’ll be slowing expanding that roster month after month for a total of roughly 50 by the end of the year. Each time a new retailer comes aboard as a BAD IDEA destination store, they’ll have access to every prior BAD IDEA release in limited quantities, so they can start at the beginning.

Bad Idea is still nailing down the identity of those 20 key stores, so if ENIAC floats your cash register….reach out: [email protected].

Here’s a preview of ENIAC #1 – click here for the NSFW versions, if you must.