WONDERCON '08: BOOM! STUDIOS PANEL

[MichaelDoran]

BOOM! announces Warhammer MMO promotion

Report by JK Parkin

600,000 Warhammer fans can’t be wrong, or at least that’s what BOOM! Studios hopes.

The comic publisher revealed at WonderCon Friday a new promotion for the upcoming Warhammer: Condemned by Fire series. A scratch-off contest, located inside the front cover of the first issue, will give fans of the popular game a 1-in-5 chance to take part in the beta test of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, a new massive multiplayer online game due to launch later this year.

“Many people have pegged this to be the next World of Warcraft,” said BOOM! Co-founder Ross Richie.

Chip Mosher, BOOM!’s sales and marketing director, said the book has already been solicited, so BOOM! will offer a 3 percent reorder incentive for retailers. All five issues of the book will also be available on BOOM!’s website for pre-order to make it easier for international fans to order it.

To help promote the book, Mosher said “This announcement is going out at the end of the month to all 600,000 subscribers of EA/MYTHIC's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning newsletter. We will be including a link to the comic shop locator.”

"We're thrilled to offer this kind of cross-promotion to our readers and I know they are going to love WAR. Having spent time playing the game during its beta test, I know it's the best of the best," Richie said. Condemned by Fire is written by Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton with art by Rahsan Ekadal. The first issue is due in April.

Mosher and Richie talked about several other BOOM! projects, including North Wind, the mini-series BOOM! is offering for free on MySpace. Mosher said the first issue sold out in 10 days, leading to a second printing. He also said orders for issue four, which was solicited after the MySpace promotion was announced, were 30 percent higher than they were for issue three.

Other projects mentioned at the panel included:

• High Rollers by novelist Gary Phillips, the author of Bangers, Shooter’s Point and High Hand. The book is about a hitman in an L.A. gang – “sort of a Sopranos turn on inner-city gangs,” Richie said.

• Pale Horse, a Western conceived by writer Andrew Cosby, which Richie described as “Bourne Identity in an Old West context.” It’s about a spy for the Union during the Civil War who tries to retire to the Black Hills with a Native American woman, but when she’s killed, he seeks vengeance and becomes a wanted man.


• Shmobots by Adam Rifkin, writer of Mouse Hunt and director of Detroit Rock City with art by Les Toil, a comedy about robots.

• Blood Bowl by Matt Forbeck, who writes the Blood Bowl novels the comic is based on. Richie called it “true fantasy football,” with orcs, elves, dwarves and ogres going at it on the gridiron.

Richie also emphasized the growth BOOM! has experienced over the last year, saying they had grown the size of the company in the last year to 11 people and moved to new offices.

“I think that we’ve been working on this next stage of the company for a long time, and the neat thing is that we already have the next stage of projects that are in the pipeline that we can’t actually talk about, but they’ll be keeping with some of the cool things that have gotten such a great response so far."

The panel ended with a Q&A that only consisted of one question about the status of ZOOM!, the line of kids comics the company announced in San Diego last year.

“We don’t have any updates or anything we can announce, but we are working on that and are in development on it,” Richie said. “It’s going to be big and we’re really excited about it.”

[-Armando523-]

great books coming from them

[samnoir]

I"m hoping for more Heroes Squared related comics!

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[ApacheDick]

Originally Posted by samnoir

I"m hoping for more Heroes Squared related comics!

Ditto. Only reason I even read this thread, and nothing on it!

[JK Parkin]

There was no Heroes Squared news at the panel, but if I see any of the BOOM! guys today at the show I'll ask them about it.

[david r]

I think Hero Squared is over. It was to be an ongoing series, but they nixed it. The creators have moved on.

That being said, some of these new BOOM titles look promising.

[Moonbeam]

Originally Posted by MichaelDoran

The panel ended with a Q&A that only consisted of one question about the status of ZOOM!, the line of kids comics the company announced in San Diego last year.

“We don’t have any updates or anything we can announce, but we are working on that and are in development on it,” Richie said. “It’s going to be big and we’re really excited about it.”

Now that they're doing an Age of Reckoning tie-in, they should do a Webkinz comic. Put online codes in it for the kids and the thing will be pure gold.

[EMeadow]

Originally Posted by david r

I think Hero Squared is over. It was to be an ongoing series, but they nixed it. The creators have moved on.

That being said, some of these new BOOM titles look promising.

They planned on ending it at issue #9, later decided to do the last 3 issues as a separate mini, but Giffen's been too busy at DC to get together with DeMatteis to write the stuff.

Hopefully we'll see it soon.

[Meteoro7]

Too bad Hero Squared was put on hold. That's the only Boom book I'm interested in.