Computer crashed and I lost my post yesterday so you get the abbreviated edition today…

Emissary #6
Spawn #162
Black Panther #22. Civil War tie-in. Written by Reggie Hudlin.
Nextwave #10 (of 12)
Punisher Max: Barracuda TP
What If: Wolverine – Enemy of the State. Written by Jimmie Robinson.

I spent last weekend at the Mid-Ohio Con, where Michael Davis held a panel on The Guardian Line (TGL). Also with him on the panel was writer/colorist Lovern Kindzierski. Davis did most of the talking, as he outlined the books, their premises, and TGL’s business plans.

TGL begins with four titles – Joe & Max, Code, Genesis 5, and The Seekers – and will eventually expand to eight and twelve over time. The idea for the imprint came to Davis ten years ago, during the height of the grim-and-gritty cycle within corporate superhero comics. Davis felt a need for more heroes with values and faith in positive, inclusive books. Though he’s worked at a number of different publishing companies over the years, it was with Christian publisher Urban Ministries Inc. that he was able to get TGL off the ground. The four flagship titles inhabit a shared universe and the characters have allegiances to different faiths, not just Christianity. While the stories are fantastical, the characters will have their share of flaws to deal with and the stories themselves will be inspired by the real world. As Davis said, it’s “the real that makes the abstract more real.”

The books will be bimonthly, Davis said, so that they can get the best work possible from the creators. Trade paperbacks will each collect four issues plus an unpublished fifth story. Original graphic novels are a possibility; in fact Davis hinted that they were in talks with Harper Collins regarding publishing details. Creator-owned material is also a possibility further down the road, once they fully establish themselves.

Davis talked a great deal about distribution. While TGL will be offered through Diamond, they also will get the books outside the direct market, including through subscriptions, Christian bookstores and churches. He stressed how comics are a tremendous growth industry in publishing now and how TGL wanted to take advantage of that by reaching out to new readers, especially those who are under-represented in comics. He talked about how product in the Christian marketplace needs legitimacy in order to succeed, comparing it to how white rappers are received in the predominantly black hip hop industry (Eminem has street cred, Vanilla Ice didn’t). One major difference between TGL and Davis’ old imprint Milestone is that the former has total control over where their books go, whereas with the latter they were dependent on parent company DC for distribution. The importance of working with direct market retailers was also emphasized.

Black and white preview issues, which contained pages from some of the flagship books, were handed out to the audience. From what I can see, they look readable; nice art, not preachy. They all draw from the superhero look and storytelling style, even though none of the characters wear costumes per se. While I can’t see myself reading a Christian comic on a regular basis, these books look like they could find an outlet, which I certainly hope they do.

Going off-topic for a second: I neglected to mention last week that I’ve discontinued my column at Comic World News in order to spend more time on this blog. Here’s the final column. I’ve been an online columnist for six years and I’m sorry to see it end, but at the same time, I feel as though this is what I need to be doing right now. So we’ll continue to walk down this new road and see where it leads.

In other news: here’s a new Mario Gully interview.

Dwayne McDuffie plays Justice League Heroes for the first time.

Deja Vu is currently at 60% at Rotten Tomatoes, which is just barely positive, although a number of the positive reviews I’ve seen posted there don’t exactly strike me as being teribly enthusiastic. In a season filled to the brim with high-quality Oscar-caliber films, I think this may be one you may want to wait for it to come out on video. I certainly am.