Announcements

After teases over the last few weeks, details on the new Monkeybrain Comics imprint from Chris Roberson and Allison Baker have been announced. The line launches on July 4th with five titles: Aesop’s Ark by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer Amelia Cole and the Unknown World by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover Edison Rex by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver October Girl by Matthew Dow Smith The line will be distributed digitally, exclusively with ComiXology. As Roberson explained in a press conference this afternoon, it's essentially an Image Comics like deal: Monkeybrain will take a small cut for packing and marketing, but all copyright will remain with the creators. According to Roberson, the line is very focused on completely creator owned projects. "Neither writer or artist can be working in a work for hire capacity. We do ask the projects that come to us if it's a collaborative team, that everyone share share some level of ownership in the property."

Marvel have revealed that issue #692 of Amazing Spider-Man will bring 'Alpha' to the World. But what is Alpha?

By Todd Allen To say that the original Black Kiss comic was controversial when it came out was something of an understatement.  Howard Chaykin spent the '80s...

If you're going to have a Star Trek: The Next Generation comic, there's a very short list of people who would be more authoritative to write it than Brannan Braga. The only other name that pops into my mind is Ronald D. Moore. IDW has tapped Braga to write Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hive, which is being promoted as "the final chapter in The Borg saga."

By Todd Allen

--I learned something new today. Remember how Watchmen started out as a treatment for the Charlton characters DC had purchased? Come to find out out, DC didn't purchase the rights to all the Charlton characters and Dynamite now has the rights to Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt. As in, the prototype for Watchmen's Ozymandias.

Four titles will end, and four will begin! What will they be? And what's a Zero Issue, anyway

DC have made it official that the much-discussed 'iconic' superhero who will be homosexual in their new 52 Universe... is original Green Lantern Alan Scott.

After announcing a book for Free Comic Book Day and a lot of teasing, the relaunched Valiant has announced it's first title. X-O Manowar is launching on May 2nd. That's actually the Wednesday BEFORE Free Comic Book Day. X-O's high concept is, roughly stated, Conan in Iron Man's suit. Essentially, a Visigoth warrior/barbarian is abducted by aliens and ends up with the aliens' most advanced weapon in the universe suit of armor. It's also been a popular concept a couple times around, particularly during the first Valiant run. Between the two previous Valiant launches, here's a quick partial list of creators who've worked on X-O: Jim Shooter, Steve Englehart, Barry Windsor-Smith, Bob Layton, Bart Sears, Jackson Guice, Mark Waid, Dwayne McDuffie and Scot Eaton. Which is to say, "no pressure."

The mostly triumphal (photos to come) Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival was marred for one indie comics stalwart when AdHouse publisher Chris Pitzer's car was broken into and several art items stolen. The complete list is in the link -- as Pitzer notes, it's kind of unlikely that that thief was much interested in the art, but there is a reward for its return.

Lauren Weinstein has posted an update from Tom Hart and Leela Corman, who tragically lost their young daughter last week:

Tom and Leela asked me to thank everyone from the bottom of their hearts. “We feel every word, every thought, every intention, and please tell them that their help has enabled us to pay for our families – who don’t have much money – to fly here rapidly to be with us. And that it has helped us with all of the costs of this horrible experience. We are beyond grateful and we owe you many lifetimes of kindness and service. We hope that you will never experience anything remotely close, but please know that whatever help you need, we are with you too.”

Although the whole situation is unbearably sad, we should all be thankful that our community has been able to help these two good people at this time. The fund is still open for donations here.

Over on the Vertigo blog, we find an announcement that Vertigo's titles are starting to be released simultaneously in both print and digital ("day and date" is an insipid phrase; let's all stop using it).

Yen Press has announced two manga style adaptations of bestselling YA novels: Sherrilyn Kenyon's Chronicles of Nick and Cassandra Clare's The Infernal Devices trilogy.  HyeKyung Baek...