A new challenger approaches! We’re living in what is quite possibly the new golden age for comics, as a wider audience, digital proliferation and a new generation of creative teams have been responsible not only for the best comic books in recent memory but of all time. The big draw here is that many of those comics which push the medium forward, happen to come from outside of the Big Two.
We’ve got Image Comics pumping out an insane amount of original content, BOOM! Studios is home to quirky offerings and Dynamite Entertainment knows how to make good use of a licensed property or two. So how do you stand out from the pack, in an industry that has plenty of quality and quantity doing the rounds? With one hell of a bad idea of course.
Or to be specific, Bad Idea comics.
Made up of the creative heavyweights behind Valiant Entertainment since their successful relaunch in 2012, Bad Idea’s core staff is made up of publisher Hunter Gorinson, director of marketing Joshua Johns, sales consultant Atom Freeman and Co-CEO & Co-Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani and Warren Simons.
On the creative front, the team will be producing comic books created by the likes of industry main eventers Matt Kindt, Doug Braithwaite, Marguerite Bennett, Mae Catt, Joshua Dysart, Tomas Giorello, Eric Heisserer, Jody Houser, Lewis LaRosa, Jeff Lemire, Peter Milligan, Adam Pollina, Robert Venditti, Zeb Wells and more.
What sets the publisher apart? Quality over quantity. “BAD IDEA’s mantra is “don’t do anything unless it’s special.” That could apply to the way we appear at conventions, it could be the way we get books into stores, but, more often than not, you’ll see it first and foremost in our comics,” the publisher explained in a press release.
With that in mind – and in spite of ourselves – BAD IDEA is going to produce an intentionally limited number of series at any given time: no more than one to two single issues per month. Single-issue, monthly comics are the fuel that keeps BAD IDEA’s engine running – and, over the past year, we’ve been making a ton of them in secret with some of the industry’s best and most respected creators.
In an age where you can grab a comic book straight from a digital distribution site such as Comixology, Bad Idea’s other plan to stand out is to make certain that comics from that label are strictly analogue when they’re released and made available in tightly controlled runs, thus restoring a sense of value to their output:
Beginning with ENIAC #1 in May 2020, BAD IDEA will self-distribute its series to just 20 handpicked comic book shops, all of whom will qualify based on “a unique system of criteria” that includes extra promotional commitments and a “strictly enforced ‘limit one per customer'” policy for Bad Idea comics, among other stipulations
Each BAD IDEA comic will feature A-level comics storytelling from some of the medium’s leading talents in a pristinely designed, prestige-format package. Some – usually our first issues or totally mind-blowing one-shots – will be oversized with page counts far in excess of the standard 22 pages. A few others might even come stealthily loaded up with hidden features and other surprise bonuses so secret we might never even mention them in public.
But, no matter what, each BAD IDEA comic will have a standard $3.99 cover price. And our goal is to make sure that each time a new one shows up in your local comic shop, it’s kind of a big deal. Here’s why: BAD IDEA’s titles will feature no variants, will not be offered digitally, and will not be collected into trade paperbacks, hardcovers, or other bookshelf formats.
You will have to go to a comic shop to buy them, each and every month.
It’s a ballsy move to say the least, but one that’ll most likely turn heads and see plenty of eyeballs pivot towards Bad Idea when they make their mark in May, beginning with ENIAC #1 by Matt Kindt and Doug Braithwaite. Now that’s a bad idea that I can get behind.
For more on Bad Idea, check them out on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Last Updated: February 6, 2020
