Hero of the Week: Ape Entertainment for publishing good stuff. I should know by now not to get too attached to new publishers, but between The Black Coat, Horrorwood, the upcoming re-launch of Athena Voltaire, and this week’s news about a Teddy Scares series (I’ve got Redmond Gore, the homicidal scarecrow teddy bear, staring at me from atop my bookshelf as I type), it’s hard not to get excited about Ape.
Villain: Top Cow for cancelling The Necromancer and not really telling anyone. Writer Josh Ortega’s mentioned recently that his genuinely scary horror series was going on hiatus until next year, but I figured that was just part of a “series of mini-series” approach that Top Cow was trying out. However, at Top Cow’s WizardWorld Chicago panel, Publisher Matt Hawkins expressed his frustration that the title has been cancelled without ever getting a real chance at taking off. I’m frustrated too. Especially since I completely missed any announcement about the cancellation, if there was one. However…
Hero: Top Cow for trying again. In that same panel, Hawkins said that they’re trying to get Marvel to okay a Necromancer/Marvel cross-over that could revitalize the concept and get the Necromancer issues so far collected as a trade paperback, which in turn could justify another shot at a series. It’s nice to know that Top Cow sees value in the series, even if it hasn’t found its audience yet. Hopefully Marvel will play along.
Hero: Robert Kirkman for being a swell guy and running a preview for Ed Brubaker’s Marvel-published Criminal in the back of the Image-published Walking Dead. Yeah, Marvel’s also been pretty nice to Kirkman, but it’s still a nice thing to do.
Hero: San Francisco’s BART system for using comics to attract young riders. As part of their Kids Ride Free Saturdays program, BART is handing out free manga and anime from VIZ Media and will even be printing VIZ characters on the back of a million BART tickets starting in September. Looks like this manga stuff is getting kinda popular.
