LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS GOES TO THE LIBRARY

[MattBrady]

Runemaster’s Lions, Tigers and Bears continues to get attention and acclaim from the outside world, something that will only increase this summer when the book is used by the Arizona Public Library system in conjunction with their Summer Children’s Literacy Program.

”The good folks at Samurai Comics (www.samuraicomics.com) in Phoenix have been involved with the local libraries ever since they first opened about five years ago,” said L,T &B writer Mike Bullock. “They’ve been casting about for a solid story to run for the Children’s literacy Program for some time and after showing LTB to the library, Samurai was given the green light to approach Runemaster Studios regarding re-printing in the paper.

”Jack and I are creating a 10 part all-new LTB story that will run in weekly serialized installments for The Arizona Republic, the state’s biggest newspaper. The story will run on the back page of the Sunday Comics’ section all summer long. Once the story has run in the paper - which has a circulation of nearly 600,000 on Sundays - they’re going to collect the story into one book and give it to all the children in the literacy program, roughly 98,000 kids.”

The first part of the story will show up in June, and run for 10 weeks. For LTB readers not in Arizona, it will be able to be seen online at www.azcentral.com as well as on the LTB mini site located at www.runemasterstudios.com .

“The story will see Joey and Courtney end up in Phoenix without their stuffed animal protectors. Once the Beasties discover the kids are all alone, they come sneaking out of the closet to ‘get’ the kids. Once the story has run in the paper, and been collected, Jack and I hope to include it in the second LTB trade paperback.

“All in all, this program is wonderful. All too often we hear about all the things wrong with our society - and comics in general, and it’s a shame that positive programs like this don’t get more coverage by the mainstream media. I learned to read with comics and if something we create helps even one child learn to read, then all our efforts are worth it. Kudos to Samurai Comics, The Phoenix library system, the Arizona Republic and everyone else involved in this excellent program. By giving these kids the gift of comics, they’re not only getting the immediate benefit of children learning to read, but they’re fostering a life-long love of reading that will benefit these kids for their entire lives.”

[Mr Wesley]

Supremely cool! And a great little way to market the comic to the audience to whom it's being aimed.

Wouldn't it be great if the larger publishers could do somthing like that in the Sunday paper? Just one or two pages per week, throughout a storyline. Isn't that how the Spirit got started?

[Greg T]

Very cool, Mike. Glad to see it!

[OZZ13]

Originally posted by Mr Wesley
Supremely cool! And a great little way to market the comic

I really have to echo with a large ditto here!


I truly wish Mike, Jack and the LTB crew all the success possible!!

[Bakema NL]

Oh man, this title and Pakkin's land are screaming out to me to grab them off the rack.........have......to......restrain. .....myself............is hard....

[OZZ13]

Originally posted by Bakema NL
Oh man, this title and Pakkin's land are screaming out to me to grab them off the rack.........have......to......restrain. .....myself............is hard....

Better pick up LTB now while you can find it... Issues 1 & 2 have both sold out!

[Bakema NL]

Originally posted by OZZ13
Better pick up LTB now while you can find it... Issues 1 & 2 have both sold out!

I hate you so much right now..........I ordered them......dude.....

I guess I missed something.......first 2 issues are out, from Image. But I also see Alias comics promoting the series as one they're about to publish. What's up with that?

[dave roman]

neat!

[Kirk Kushin]

I stand in awe of your marketing - truly incredible news! Nice work whoever cooked that gets a gold star in guerilla marketing. It's amazing in this era of media conglomerates you were able to get placement like that in a paper. Most excellent!

[AlexLothos]

Very good news. Congrats all around!

[Ray Dillon]

Awesome guys! Congratulations. I'll be sure to hand it off to our local library, too. Finally got a graphic novel section.

[Tony Lee]

Nice work, Mike and Jack!

You mentioned TPB's - any ETA on when you'd be expecting 'season 2' of LTB to be coming out?

[Mike Bullock]

Originally posted by Mr Wesley
Supremely cool! And a great little way to market the comic to the audience to whom it's being aimed.

Thanks, Mr. Wesley. This isn't really about marketing the comic, but more about helping teach kids to read and having them enjoy the learning process. I learned to read with comics and I can’t even measure how that has helped me in life by increasing my vocabulary, fostering my imagination and exercising my mind. I guess in a roundabout way, this will help all comics, and it certainly will benefit the visibility of LTB, but the main goal is to get more kids reading and benefiting from a life long love of comics. Sure a pile of cash from LTB would be nice, but in the end, we'd rather look back and know we did something meaningful and positive with the property.

Originally posted by Greg T
Very cool, Mike. Glad to see it!

Thanks, Greg! And thanks for that other thing, too.

Originally posted by OZZ13
I truly wish Mike, Jack and the LTB crew all the success possible!!

Thanks, Ozz!

Originally posted by Bakema NL
I guess I missed something.......first 2 issues are out, from Image. But I also see Alias comics promoting the series as one they're about to publish. What's up with that?

All four issues of LTB Vol I are/will be published by Image. Alias holds the license for the first series and has been a tremendous help in getting the first series out there. It's a rather confusing arrangement, but the end results are worth it, we think.

Originally posted by dave roman
neat!

My thoughts exactly.

Originally posted by Kirk Kushin
I stand in awe of your marketing - truly incredible news! Nice work whoever cooked that gets a gold star in guerilla marketing. It's amazing in this era of media conglomerates you were able to get placement like that in a paper. Most excellent!

I've worked in PR for nearly two decades now and one thing I've always found is that the property should be able to sell itself, and when it does, all sorts of doors will open up that might not open for other properties that aren't able to do that, no matter how aggressive the marketing campaign is. This is magnified when you're not doing it for monetary gain. I'm not sure if any of my other properties would get this sort of opportunity, but I'm very thankful that LTB has it. It was (and still is) a LOT of work to get this going, but the end result will be worth every second we put into it. The first time a kid walks up to me and tells me he learned to read with LTB, my job will be done.

Originally posted by AlexLothos
Very good news. Congrats all around!

Thanks, Alex!

Originally posted by Ray Dillon
Awesome guys! Congratulations. I'll be sure to hand it off to our local library, too. Finally got a graphic novel section.

Every library should have a trade/GN section. I loved being able to go to my library when I was kid, because they had "comic trading box" where you could bring in comics and trade them for comics the library had. Amazing how many comics I was able to read and how much enjoyment I pulled from that box.

Originally posted by Tony Lee
Nice work, Mike and Jack!

You mentioned TPB's - any ETA on when you'd be expecting 'season 2' of LTB to be coming out?

Thanks, Tony! Expect news of LTB Vol II's arrival soon. This summer strip should keep everyone distracted while Jack and I work feverishly in the background preparing the second LTB mini.

[Bakema NL]

Originally posted by Mike Bullock
All four issues of LTB Vol I are/will be published by Image. Alias holds the license for the first series and has been a tremendous help in getting the first series out there. It's a rather confusing arrangement, but the end results are worth it, we think.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Landry]

Sounds cool that Alias has the licence and it sounds like Alias fronts the money for publishing through IMAGE and then that alows the creators to step back and create rather than finance their title.

Looks like a good arrangement.

But hey I'm jsut speculating.
-

could be way off...

[Mike Bullock]

**UPDATE**

I just found out they've pushed this up and the first installment will apear in the paper on Sunday, May 22nd with the final strip running on Sunday, July 24th.

[Ryan Twombly]

Good stuff, Mike. I've spoken with my local library about adding to thier really pretty decent GN/TPB collection. Perhaps another visit is in order....

Did you have a comment about when the V1 trade will be out? I'm reasonably sure they'd go for it.