By Jon Gorga
Previous Bad Idea Comics panels held at NYCC involved free donuts and custom pizza boxes. Plus comics giveaways. So we had to see what it would get up to this year in the last minutes of New York Comic-Con.
There was so much off-the-wall stuff, we can barely squeeze it all into this article. Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani was on hand to keep the asylum running smoothly while the panel was moderated by Siena Fallon, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
Announced this past summer and certainly never to be replicated: one issue of Lancer will ship, if requested, with a 1:250 variant cover edition on which the cover itself has a steel serrated edge that literally can be used as a very awkward but very functional stainless steel knife. The demonstration video above was played. Lancer #1 ships later this month.
Believe it or not, there will also be a series of artist variant covers on Lancer featuring… no drawn art at all. As Fallon put it, “we’ve got some amazing artists on covers here, literally on covers!” The “Paul Pope cover” already solicited will not feature art by the celebrated artist but art of the celebrated artist: specifically a portrait photograph of him. One of these artist photo variant covers in the series will also feature legendary artist Jim Steranko.
Again, just to be clear, nobody’s drawing these things. Hilarious.
However, one fan attending the con panel finally asked the question we’ve all been dying to know: if these are the promotional variant covers we are getting, “what’s the wildest gimmick that definitely got turned down?” For Bad Idea’s title The Ends, Dinesh wanted to invite the readers to send in photos of themselves dressed as Nazis and call it the “Ruin Your Political Career!” campaign. Wow.
And that wasn’t all. If you actually care about reading sequential art itself, this panel truly did not disappoint as free copies of their ashcan for a 2027 series titled Courier were given out to anyone who signed-up for notifications from their upcoming Kickstarter. Courier is written by Robert Venditti and drawn by manga sensation Acky Bright! In the preview pages, chimeric kaiju roam the deserts that used to be oceans in a unique post-apocalyptic world where robot girls yearn to be human.
Underneath that dangerous metal knife variant cover is Lancer, which writer Mike Costa described as a portrait of “where the world is on its way to: a world of unrestrained greed and brutal impersonal murder, of massive climate change, and horrible late stage capitalist deprivation.” Artist Jake Baker is a new discovery of Bad Idea (previously only self-published) that Costa described as a “kind of looser Daniel Warren Johnson” who can make “all of his characters look very distinct and different.”
Warbird #0 and Warbird #1, written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, are already out and going into second printings. Artists involved include Alex Maleev and Esad Ribic, and it was announced that Andrea Sorrentino is contributing a flashback sequence to issue #2.
The crew also revealed a new series, The Hero Trade: The Butler, a spin-off of The Hero Trade featuring the character Dinesh, described as a “lunatic Batman archetype: The Watch,” created by Matt Kindt and David Lapham. Following the Batman pattern, this tale focuses on The Watch’s Alfred figure. The issue will be drawn by Lapham entirely as splash pages à la the famous Superman #75 or the wild Nextwave #11, and hits stands in January 2027.
Also announced and coming sometime in 2027 was Scream My Name, Joshua Dysart’s new science fiction horror book drawn by newcomer Chloe Brailsford (previously a cover artist for variants all over Bad Idea and other publishers). Dinesh described it as a “super messed-up revenge story,” and the tagline is “Re-made for revenge.” That’s all we know about it at this time.
All kinds of news was shared for It Demands Sacrifice! The comic-book originally pitched by writers Philip Gelatt and David Yarovesky as “goats versus pagans” is also rolling out to stores later this month and they revealed –SPOILER ALERT!– Alex Pollina‘s design for the secret true villain of the series: the demon Asmodeus. The big announcement earlier at the convention is that there will be a vinyl record containing a full-cast audio-drama version packaged with the book’s 1:250 variant starring a roster of Hollywood names almost as impressive as the list of comics industry names mentioned in this panel. Many were already dropped during the Retailer Day presentation on Wednesday but the final big name exclusively shared with fans on Sunday is stand-up comedian and Marvel Studios’ Eternals actor Kumail Nanjiani!
Why? To that, it seems the Bad Idea braintrust perpetually says: why not? Clearly, those crazy bastards at Bad Idea Comics have done it again.
Check out the rest of The Beat‘s coverage from NYCC ’26.
