SDCC '09: IDW Publishing
2009 has IDW Publishing celebrating its 10 years in business, and what they're excited to reveal in the panel is the release of digital comics for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, other web phones. Not only a handful of the Transformers books they have now, but they plan to publish a large catalog in this format. For instance Danger Girl Preview is free as an iPhone app, and new releases Parker, Astroboy, GI Joe adaptations are coming soon.
Fact: Danger Girl originally Wildstorm and gradnfathered into DC, now is in IDW Publishing. Not a DG reader, but funny to see how things get shuffled through different companies.
By the way the Digital Comics are in slideshow format. To do so, the comics are handled by hand by production artists (enlarge word balloons, cropping etc) often from the original scans. IDW promises these will be of the highest quality, and I can't wait to see how they turn out for the Parker adaptation.
For the Transformer fans, IDW has images from the classic Transformers books from '80s, and a sample available at classic-transformers.com.
Since I don't pay attention to Newsarama most of the time, I was late to learn that Bob Schreck (former DC editor of books such as All Star Superman) joins IDW Publishing and starts 2009. He also talked about how friends may be "crossing over" to work with IDW, which is exciting and practically confirms I may defect from DC to IDW.
Speaking of DC Comics, Bill Willingham and Gene Ha will (finally) collaborate in 2010 for a 6 issue comic called "Back Roads". I don't remember much about the story other than the art is GORGEOUS. It's Ha, what more do you need?
Fact: Willingham and Schreck have now worked at three companies together, to which Schreck raised his hands and said: Let's ruin another one!
Winter World, a book by Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino from way back when, will be collected and in stores in Dec 2010
In other news: The Rocketeer recoloured, "Deluxe" edition 8x12 with extra 140 pages of unpublished material, sketches etc I've already covered this in this Wondercon post.
IDW also recently published a Star Trek prequel. Listening to fans who wanted to see an official adaptation of the movie, there will be a "writers cut" with extended and all-new scenes coming out Jan 2010.
Horror fans will also be happy to find that Clive Barker is creating Seduth, a one shot, with art by Gabriel Rodriguez. The 3D effect may sound gimmicky, but looking at the pages onscreen it works. The deeper the story gets, the more effect comes to play and there are some crazy ass pages there that will blow people away. Gabriel Rodriguez btw drew Locke & Key.
We'll also see more entertainment people coming up with comics. Jennifer Love Hewitt's Music Box, anthology of stories similar to the Twilight Zone, was created and plotted by Hewitt, and scripted by Scott Lobdell. Billy Martin, Good Charlotte guitarist, co-write and drew Vitriol with Brent Allen (writing) Spring 2010. Brea Grant, former Heroes actor, writes with her brother a zombies in 1920s NYC comic, with art by Kyle Strahm.
Love the kooky, sensationalist tabloids? Chris Ryall writes the comic version of Weekly World News with the classic Bat Boy, Ed Anger, and Manigator. It is so weird.
Lastly, we can look forward to book adaptations of Peter S Beagle's Last Unicorn and Fine & Private Place, Harlan Ellison's Phoenix Without Ashes in 2010.
Oh and I got this beautiful, beautiful Rocketeer poster. Beautiful! Everyone go out and buy the deluxe edition, trust.
Phew! That's it for the panel. Stay tune for more of the panels I'm in today.