Among a slew of announcements made during the opening days of the San Diego Comic-Con, Comixology Originals unveiled a round of new titles and creators, and Marvel and IDW said they are teaming up to create comics and graphic novels for middle grade readers.
In addition, DC Entertainment released pricing and new content for DC Universe, a new online subscription service that will debut in the fall. DC also announced a new round of graphic novels for young readers to be released by its newly launched DC Zoom and DC Ink imprints.
And in a major announcement from startup comics publishing house Lion Forge, Gail Simone, an acclaimed comics writer for Marvel and DC, will join the company to direct and shape Catalyst Prime, its year old multicultural superhero line. Simone, a noted advocate for diversity and inclusion in comics, will take over Catalyst Prime from its founding senior editor Joe Illidge, who left Lion Forge in the spring to become editor-in-chief of Valiant Comics.
Simone is a top comics writer whose stories have defined such major characters as Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, Deadpool and Batgirl, and her addition to Lion Forge is a major hire for the publisher's fledging superhero line. Lion Forge president Geoff Gerber, said Simone's "leadership on representation of women in superhero comics speaks to her fit with Lion Forge.”
The new round of seven titles announced by Comixology Originals will be available for sale immediately via its parent company Amazon, as well as via the Kindle, and Kindle unlimited and Comixology Unlimited subscription services. The titles will also be available in print on demand editions. All Comixology Originals titles can also be accessed by anyone with a Prime membership.
Among the new titles coming from Comixology are Goliath Girls by writer Sam Humphries and artist Alti Firmansyah, a tongue in cheek adventure story about a trio of gal-buddies in a city of monsters. And Hit Reblog: Comics That Caught Fire, written and illustrated by Megan Kearney and edited by Hope Nicholson, is an anthology of such hit webcomics as This is Fine and Cyanide and Happiness.
The IDW/Marvel middle grade comics partnership will launch in November with a Spider-Man series, followed by an Avengers and Black Panther Series in January 2019.
DC Universe, a new online subscription service offering access to thousands of DC comics as well as live action films, animation and more, will launch in the fall. The annual price will be $74.99 for an annual membership, and $7.99 for monthly use.
Around the floor at the San Diego Comic-con, Viz Media is hosting an appearance by manga artist Kohei Horikoshi, creator of the bestselling My Hero Academia series; First Second editorial director Mark Siegel was celebrating the release of The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins, the top selling graphic novel on Amazon with 99,000 copies in print. And Fantagraphics is relaunching The Comics Journal as a print publication in January 2019, after ending print publication of it in 2013 and turning it into an online publication.
