MARK THOMPSON ON CHECKER'S CROSSGEN REPRINTS

**MattBrady** · 07-17-2007, 04:44 PM

by Chris Arrant

Late last year, Checker Book Publishing Group announced that it was reprinting several collections from the library of failed publisher Crossgen. With nine trades announced in all, the reprints are part of a licensing agreement with Walt Disney Publishing, who purchased the rights to Crossgen's library shortly after the company's closure.

Although to history Crossgen might be viewed ultimately as a failed company, during its tenure it quickly became the third largest publisher in direct market comics and released an expansive amount of titles. Checker's initiative released uncollected issues of the Crossgen titles in two volumes each of Sojourn, Negation and Scion and one volume each of The Way of the Rat Sigil and The Path.

With a new Sojourn collection scheduled to ship next week, we talked with Checker's Publisher, Mark Thompson, to find out about the initiative.

Newsarama: Mark, what was the impetus behind Checker reaching out to Walt Disney Publishing (owners of the CG assets) to reprint comics from Crossgen?

Mark Thompson: It's kind of our specialty. With our backlist, we feel that our niche is when quality publications go by the wayside – bankruptcy, creator squabbles whatever. We hate to see the fans suffer; they're ultimate victims because they're not getting to see great material. We identified Crossgen as definitely the high quality material that we go after & pursue rights for -- to get them back in the fans hands.

The Crossgen material is obviously extremely high quality. When Disney picked them up, they picked up the whole pile of stuff and didn't know what do to with it. They did what their specialty was – taking a handful of properties and started the process formulating movies and their own repacked publishing that fit within their specialties.

They were open to hear what we had to say, and we give them a good presentation and samples of our books such as Alien Legion. They saw our production standards and felt comfortable that we'd do right by the individual properties, and from there on we had a partnership.

NRAMA: A total of 9 collected editions are part of the agreement: two from Sojourn, Negation and Scion; and single volumes of The Way of the Rat, Sigil and The Path. What led you to doing these titles – these later volumes?

MT: I visited New York City recently and had a brief conversation with Disney representatives, and we're strongly considering more collections and we will probably approach them with a proposal for more collections fairly soon. Nothing is concrete, but it's a probable thing that's going to happen.

NRAMA: So one could assume the sales of the released editions so far have been good?

MT: Yes. The pre-orders have been good through Diamond, and we've good success getting picked up by the book trade. We're a bit behind on the release schedule we originally announced,

NRAMA: Are there any plans to do the manga-esque "Traveler" sizes that Crossgen did for any of these books?

MT: Presently the plan is to do traditional GN sizes, but I can understand the marketing that precipitated Crossgen doing this. And I know a lot of people really like them, but I've always been a real art aficionado – I think all comic fans are – I don't want to deteriorate the artwork by reducing the size. I'd rather see it full size, as the artists' intended.

NRAMA: Generally, what's been your reaction to doing these books?

MT: We're thrilled and proud to be working with this material. It's a bitter-sweet process where – it's a crying shame that a venture of this nature didn't take off and be commercially viable to keep it going. I wished that they could've worked out their finances to keep going, but again that's where we at Checker come in.

Newsarama Note: Disney has the rights to produce new material based on the CrossGen properties.

tgail · 07-17-2007, 04:50 PM

I just wish someone would give Sojourn an actual ending. That would be nice.

Darquehex · 07-17-2007, 04:55 PM

Any word on the last two issues of Negation War...?

atanamar · 07-17-2007, 04:55 PM

Any word on what the schedule is now? I'm totally psyched about the Negation trades...

Nobody · 07-17-2007, 05:16 PM

I gotta lotta respect for Checker Publishing and what they've been doing for the past six years or so.

Vyper · 07-17-2007, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atanamar

Any word on what the schedule is now? I'm totally psyched about the Negation trades...

Nope, the rights that Checker picked up only covered printed issues. So, even though, from what Paul Pelletier has mentioned here and there, a large portion of the remainder of NW was done (at least on his end, because he's so totally awesome - and that's not a sarcastic statement), we're no likely to see anything unless, by some miracle, Disney decides to pay people to finish it up.

Having said that, I'm totally going after those Negation trades. I have all the single issues, but the trades are just nice to have on your shelf.

skaly · 07-17-2007, 05:28 PM

SLG is currently producing some Disney properties including Tron and Gargoyles. You think they could handle writing the CrossGen titles?

Generic Eric · 07-17-2007, 06:03 PM

Quote:

SLG is currently producing some Disney properties including Tron and Gargoyles. You think they could handle writing the CrossGen titles?

Disney is too much of a hastle to deal with for SLG. It's doughtful they would pick up new projects to work from.

GenerallZodd · 07-17-2007, 06:06 PM

I wouldnt even call Crossgen a failure. It presented a new business model for comics (albeit one that flopped, but still), it made some people money, published cool comics and it created some cool properties for Disney to mine in the future. Like Abadazad. I'd call that success.

TonyBedard · 07-17-2007, 06:09 PM

I'm pretty psyched about those NEGATION trades, too!

There's actually enough material for at least 3 trades, if you count MARK OF CHARON, the CROSSGEN CHRONICLES origin of Obregon Kaine and the LAWBRINGER one-shot. All of them were integral to the Negation saga.

I can't wait to find out how the story ends.

And then maybe they'll consider collecting ROUTE 666 and KISS KISS BANG BANG. those were cool...

MikeD · 07-17-2007, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tgail

I just wish someone would give Sojourn an actual ending. That would be nice.

I'll second that!

AirDave817 · 07-17-2007, 06:11 PM

I noticed that one of the titles not mentioned was Ruse. Ruse was a very cool title. I think it was brought to a conclusion, kind of a "we know that this is going to be the last issue we publish finale" rather than a natural conclusion. I wonder what the future holds in store for the title.

pop monkey · 07-17-2007, 06:14 PM

Wish these things would hurry up and come out! I've been ordering them for the store as they're solicited, but none have shown up yet. They're late, and I can't wait to see them. Now, if we could get some more Valiant collections...

cyberv · 07-17-2007, 06:26 PM

Call me when they do Ruse trades. Until then... YAWN.

jaredgood1 · 07-17-2007, 06:48 PM

I still miss Route 666...

KyleV · 07-17-2007, 07:17 PM

Quote:

I wouldnt even call Crossgen a failure. It presented a new business model for comics (albeit one that flopped, but still), it made some people money, published cool comics and it created some cool properties for Disney to mine in the future. Like Abadazad. I'd call that success.

It's also provided lots of work for oh-so needy lawyers and kept money out of the hands of those pesky writers and artists.

A roaring success indeed.

Comic-Reader · 07-17-2007, 07:25 PM

Why does the article talk about some of the trades as having been released already? I haven't seen any of them in the stores.

redskindavyd · 07-17-2007, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tgail

I just wish someone would give Sojourn an actual ending. That would be nice.

I just wish there would be an ending for ALL of the books.

phooling · 07-17-2007, 07:44 PM

Weirdly it seems like Checker is skipping some issues with Scion and Way of the Rat. With Scion they are publishing book 6 which collects 33-38. The last volume I can see that Crossgen published was number 4, which collected 22-27, and with Way of the Rate it's the same story, with them going straight to volume 3 even though there was never a volume 2 as far as I can tell.

I would really like to see them collect all of the Crossgen stuff, and I defintiely agree with the folks above who mentioned the goodness that was Ruse.

ALIEN_freak_jimbo · 07-17-2007, 08:19 PM

I miss Crossgen and its a real shame it folded... and a shame it's memory will be known as a "failure". I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that Crossgen changed Comics quite a bit... especially Marvel. From coloring to their "realistic" drawing aethestic, you can see the influence. Of course, alot of the Crossgen artist went to Marvel, so that could be it, too.... but still, before CrossGen, comics did not look the way the do now.

I'd also like to have trades of RUSE and ROUTE 666!!!

BriGuy · 07-17-2007, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyBedard

And then maybe they'll consider collecting ROUTE 666 and KISS KISS BANG BANG. those were cool...

I'd certainly like to see the end of KKBB.

GenerallZodd · 07-17-2007, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KyleV

It's also provided lots of work for oh-so needy lawyers and kept money out of the hands of those pesky writers and artists.

A roaring success indeed.

who said anything about roaring?

bad things happen. most of those writers and artists are still working and none died due to their experiences with CrossGen. I have a feeling alot of those people will be recieving royalty checks many years from now.

SpyGuy · 07-17-2007, 09:02 PM

According to TalesOfWonder.com, neither SOJOURN VOL. 5 nor WAY OF THE RAT VOL. 3 has shipped yet, so I'll be extremely surprised if SOJOURN VOL. 6 is about to arrive.

How about including an update on the status of these unshipped collections in this article?

pop monkey · 07-17-2007, 09:07 PM

Here's what's been solicited so far with the corresponding Diamond product codes:

JAN073489 SCION VOL 6 ROYAL WEDDING TP (supposed to have shipped in March 07)
DEC063445 SOJOURN VOL 5 A SORCERERS TALE TP (supposed to have shipped in Feb 07)
JUL073399 SIGIL VOL 6 PLANETARY UNION TP (supposed to ship in Aug 07)
MAR073294 SIGIL VOL 5 DEATH MATCH TP (supposed to have shipped in May 07)
FEB073297 WAY OF THE RAT VOL 3 HAUNTED ZHUMAR TP (supposed to have shipped in April 07)
MAY073314 NEGATION VOL 3 HOUNDED TP (supposed to ship in July 07)
JUL073398 NEGATION VOL 4 TP (supposed to ship in Sept 07)
APR073537 PATH VOL 3 DEATH & DISHONOR TP (supposed to have shipped in June 07)

So far NONE of these have been shipped, and, curiously, Crossgen never published a SOJOURN VOL. 4, or a SCION VOL. 5 trade paperback, so I don't understand why Checker seems to have skipped over these volumes.

I eagerly await these volumes, and I hope the shipping schedule gets worked out, but what's the deal with the skipped volumes? I also hope that ROUTE 666, BRATH, RUSE, MYSTIC and others get picked up by Checker, as well!

STL · 07-17-2007, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pop monkey

Wish these things would hurry up and come out! I've been ordering them for the store as they're solicited, but none have shown up yet. They're late, and I can't wait to see them. Now, if we could get some more Valiant collections...

+1.

I've prdered the Sigil and Negation ones, haven't seen either. (