Earlier this year Boom Studios launched a rather well-received kids imprint with comics based on characters from Jim Henson’s Muppet Show and Pixar’s animated movies. Next up? Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #699 and Mickey Mouse and Friends #297, according to ICv2.com. The last publisher to release these long-running titles was Gemstone. Apparently Boom won’t be continuing Gemstone’s bigger, more expensive format, but will publish 24-page issues at a $2.99 price point.

UPDATE: Matt Brady talks to Boom publisher and co-founder Ross Richie about the Boom/Disney deal on the main site, and you can read the interview here.

It’s like the old saying goes: “This might just be crazy enough to work.”

BOOM! Studios, which is already heading a coup with its licensing of the Incredibles and the Muppet Show (as well as great series like Unthinkable and Irredeemable), now has one more weapon in its arsenal:

Die Hard’s John %@$#%@#in McClane.

According to solicits, Die Hard: Year One is due out in August, and will go back in time to 1976 to explore John’s first year in the police force, a la Batman Begins or Casino Royale. Howard Chaykin will be writing, while Steven Thompson will be drawing, which already sounds to be completely awesome, especially considering how often people in the comics industry talk about Die Hard (I’m lookin’ at you, Dan Slott!).

Can I get a yippee ki yay from the reader base?

You know what doesn’t sound like it would make the transition into a comic book adaptation very well, if at all?

The Muppet Show.

Just look at the name. A Muppet is the type of puppet used by Jim Henson and his crew in the many brilliant works they created over the decades, a type in which the puppeteer is heavily involved in not only making it move, but in really performing it.

And it was a type of show; originally a television show, but they transitioned to film quite easily.

So when you remove the Muppet and the show from the concept of The Muppet Show and then try to give it a go, it really doesn’t sound like it should work at all, does it?

And it might not, if the Muppet characters weren’t so thoroughly developed over the decades to the point that the can exist as characters, regardless of whether they’re just voices on a John Denver album, or animated characters in a cartoon, or, now, characters drawn into a comic book.

And if cartoonist Roger Langridge wasn’t the guy writing and drawing Boom Studio’s new four-issue miniseries, The Muppet Show.

The Muppet Show #1 is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of The Muppet Show, it is, in fact, literally a comic book version of the show. Langridge draws a whole show almost exactly as it would have been seen on TV (or now on DVD); all’s it’s missing is the theme song and sound.
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BOOM! Studios has unleashed a double-barreled salvo of Mark Waid-related media, sending us not only a podcast with the EiC himself, but also giving us a sneak trailer for Waid’s new series Irredeemable.

In the first “15 Minutes with Waid,” Mark will discuss his relaunched series Potter’s Field. The series will return in March, according to the writer. He also discusses the young studio’s trials and tribulations as a new comics publisher.

Meanwhile, Irredeemable promises to be a new, complex twist on typical superhero adventures. “In superhero comics, pretty much everyone who’s called upon to put on a cape is, at heart, emotionally equipped for the job. I reject that premise,” said Waid in a press release. “IRREDEEMABLE is, in a way, my third and most complex chapter on the cost of superheroics - a pulp adventure tale of horror exploring how the lessons we learn about right and wrong as children can become warped and twisted when challenged by the realities of the adult world.”

You can check out the trailer by clicking below, or by checking out the first seven pages linked here!

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When adding onto the digitial comics explosion, perhaps its fitting that BOOM! Studios has staked out new territory for online distribution. (Note: I said “ironic” earlier just because it’s an explosion tied to a company called BOOM… get it? …Well, at least my mother understands me.)

The publisher announced today that their release of HEXED #1 on Google Android is the first comic ever to be released on the mobile operating system. According to their release, “in less than 48 hours the free comic had been downloaded more than 10,000 times, and received a stellar 4.72 out of 5 rating from over 600 user reviews.”

“The ‘HEXED #1′ release on Android has gone above and beyond our wildest expectations. ” said iVerse Media founder Michael Murphey in the release. “In less than 24 hours we received 100s of emails from Google Android users not only praising the software, but — more importantly — raving about the quality of the story and art… and it just keeps coming. The book has been reviewed over 900 times now, and people not only love it… they want more.” Furthermore, the series will also be available on the iPhone starting this week.

Hey folks, this week will be a shorter than usual post because I have a number of jobs I am working on and have a guest at my house that gets my undivided attention before anything. Anyway, here we go…

MARK WAID: I think by now people know I am a huge fan of Mark Waid… the man and the author. At a time I totally lacked any confidence to start writing, mark was always around with advice, encouragement and compliments as well… something other writers tend not to do very much, especially since a lot of other writers looked at me as only an inker or someone that was connected with a lot of players and would just figure I got my work by schmoozing or blackmail. Mark was around when I would pitch a few books a week looking for work.

The funny and cool think about Mark is that one conversation with him about character development will make you a better writer instantly and one of the greatest things I have to look forward to, as a fan, for 2009 is the amount of new characters that Mark will be writing at Boom Studios where he also happens to be the Editor-in-Chief. On the Boom site, they have set up a special section of message boards for Mark and I have to tell you… get in there and have some fun and ask him questions and such, because this is a rare opportunity. When you go there you will notice a few other creators stopping by and throwing their weight around as well, so don’t delay… click on the link and tell them I sent you. Hopefully one day when they do a necessary book on Mark’s career, I will be allowed to contribute to the introduction. Until then, verbally volley with the man at: http://markwaid.boom-studios.net/ (more…)

If you’re living in LA and want to hob-nob with some comics pros, you’re in luck: Mark Waid and the rest of BOOM Studios will be working at Meltdown Comics the remaining Wednesdays in January!

The idea came to promote HEXED #1, which was released in its entirety on the Internet. But the surprise trip to Meltdown was so successful, BOOM decided to keep it up the rest of the month, not just promoting HEXED but everything in the store!

“Some of the best times I had growing up came from hanging at my LCS on new comic book day. We just thought what better way to support the release of HEXED than spending our Wednesday evenings helping out at Meltdown?” said Marketing and Sales Director Chip Mosher in a press release. “And hey, who doesn’t like to get paid to hang out at comic book store?”

In the above picture, the BOOM! staff meets up with M.F. Grimm, writer of the acclaimed Vertigo graphic novel Sentences.

• Splash Page has a full eight-page story from BOOM!’s Zombie Tales book, written by Oscar nominated screenplay writer Kim Krizan with art by Jon Reed.

• Quote the Man: Nevermore.

• Seven plain old creepy movies.

• Letterer Todd Klein shares a creepy poem.

• Artist Evan Dorkin’s Milk & Cheese get into the spirit of the season. Kind of.

• Comics creator J. Bone shows how he crafted his Fly costume.

• P. Craig Russell and Tim Bradstreet are working on a comic adaptation of Clive Barker’s Age of Desire. Here’s a preview.

• And finally, via Jeff Smith, Graham Annable’s Joy to the Weird:

BOOM! sent over a video featuring Ed Quinn, who plays Nathan Stark on the Sci Fi Channel’s Eureka, and the show’s co-creator Andrew Cosby. The pair, naturally, talk about the BOOM! Studios Eureka comic book series that was announced in San Diego this summer and ships in December:

Check out the covers to issue #1 after the jump …

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Following up on the interview Mark Waid did with the team behind their new series Hexed, BOOM! sends over the cover to issue #2, which is due in January.

BOOM! E-i-C and comics writer Mark Waid will appear on the cable program LA Ink tonight, which airs on The Learning Channel. Here’s the full episode info:

LA Ink
Comic Relief
TV-PG (DL)
Oct 16, 10:00 pm (60 minutes)
Hannah attempts to transform the crew at the shop into larger than life comic book characters and meets with comics guru Mark Waid. Naheed has her work cut out for her with the serious business of managing the shop while trying to bond with the crew at the same time.

Next month BOOM! Studios is releasing a hardcover adaptation of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s epic poem Nyarlathotep, with illustrations by Black Metal artist Chuck BB. Last week Newsarama ran the “transcript” of a seance where BOOM! editor-in-chief Mark Waid and BB tried to contact Lovecraft about the project, and now BOOM!’s sent us another piece of artwork from the project.

Yesterday Newsarama carried an interview between BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid and Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon about the upcoming comic series. Today, the publisher sends us the two covers for Issue 2, by Dennis Calero and Joseph Corroney.

You can see Cover B after the break.

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And finally, here’s the last video featuring Gary Phillips, author of BOOM!’s High Rollers:

BOOM! Studios put together some videos to promote their comic High Rollers by Gary Phillips. Here’s the third one:

As I mentioned yesterday, BOOM! Studios put together some videos featuring High Rollers writer Gary Phillips. Here’s the second one:

BOOM! Studios sent over links to four different videos featuring Gary Phillips, writer of High Rollers for the publisher. In them, he talks about his comics background, the story and lots of other stuff. Here’s the first one:

BOOM! has a behind the scenes video up from a shoot G4 did for San Diego. It features Wanted screenwriter Chris Morgan, who also writes Salem: Queen of Thorns, visiting the BOOM! offices. The video also features an appearance by Mark Waid:

Although Adam Rifkin’s resume only includes one comic book so far — Shmobots — he’s written and/or directed many movies over the course of his career, including Detroit Rock City, Underdog, Look and Small Soldiers. This week I conducted an interview with Rifkin over email to find out more about his comics work, what he’s working on now and, of course, The Kitten Channel.

JK: So how did the Shmobots come about? Did you know Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby (BOOM! co-founders) before you pitched the series?

Adam: The idea for Shmobots came to me in a flash of thinking that it might be funny to see a group of pot smoking, slacker robots incompetently try to pick up a hooker. At first I considered writing it as a short film, but then I couldn’t help but feel that there was a bigger idea to explore. The bigger idea being that of a whole subculture of stupid, pot-smoking robots who don’t work, don’t contribute to society in any productive way, but have an offensive sense of entitlement. I grew up with a lot of kids like that, so I knew what there voices would sound like. I wondered what people might call this subculture of mechanical loser and thus, Shmobots was born.

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Back in April, comics retailer David Pirkola was shot during a robbery of his store, Apparitions Comics and Books in Grand Rapids, Mich. At the time, iFanboy.com put out the call for donated items they could auction off to help Pirkola with his rising medical bills.

The first of those auctions started over the weekend, for an original Warhammer 40,000 comic strip drawn by Clumsy and Little Things creator Jeffrey Brown.

According to a press release from BOOM! Studios, which publishes the Warhammer comics, Brown is one of Pirkola’s friends and is a big fan of Warhammer:

“I became a father a year and a half ago, so it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to field my Ultramarines force or let my epic scale ork gargants rampage across the battlefield,” said Brown. “I keep up with the comics, novels, and White Dwarf magazine, but spend more time playing with buses and trucks now. It was a great experience to work on this page and get back to the game that I love, and it was even better knowing I could help David by doing it.”

iFanboy will be adding other item from BOOM!, Image, Oni and more, so keep an eye on this page for more auction items.

You can check out two versions of Brown’s strip — one with an interview with the creator, one without — after the jump.

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