MonkeyBrain Goes to Print

MonkeyBrain began as a digital-first comic book publisher back in 2012 that was liked by readers and critics alike. They released creator-owned comics on the comiXology platform, which is the most popular digital comics website. However, if you don't want to get MonkeyBrain comics for your phone, tablet, digital reader or computer this summer of 2013 you will no longer have to worry – because some of MonkeyBrain's comics are making the jump to print! Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver's Edison Rex is a series about the world's greatest villain who finally defeats the world's greatest hero and has to decide what to do with his life afterwards (Megamind anyone?). A collection of the series will be published in June by IDW. In July writer Joshua Williamson and artist Mike Henderson's Masks & Mobsters series will be published by Shadowline (who I forgot existed) and Image Comics. Masks & Mobsters is a noir anthology series set back in the era of the Depression and looks at how the mob is affected when masked vigilantes begin to surface. After Mask & Mobsters, writers Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride and artist Nick Brokenshire's Amelia Cole and the Unknown World hits the stands in August. This series is about a young woman (the titular Amelia Cole) who is living in two worlds, one our mundane reality, the other a magical land. Unfortunately for Cole, she gets stuck in a third world: one where magic and the mundane are having trouble coexisting with each other. One of the MonkeyBrain creators, Allison Baker, commented about MonkeyBrain's jump to print: "Print collections have been a main goal from the beginning and it's really exciting to see such a major piece of the plan fall into place... especially since it means even more people get to discover the amazing work of our creators!" Unfortunately, the only book I've yet to read from MonkeyBrain was Bandette and I don't see that on the list of their digital comics coming to print, but I hope the colorful comic about a thief in the beautiful city of Paris will soon follow the rest of MonkeyBrain's print books... and has hopefully improved since the last time I read it. But in the mean time, fans of Edison Rex, Masks & Mobsters and Amelia Cole and the Unknown World can finally enjoy these titles in print and I can see a lot of new readers to MonkeyBrain (and comics in general) getting invested, thanks to the new print format. But, only time will tell. What I'm surprised by is how these MonkeyBrain titles are being published by other companies. Why not publish them under MonkeyBrain? They have their fans. I think they could survive being published by their digital counterparts. But I guess it is another good opportunity to get more fans from other companies into the series. Hopefully this all adds up for MonkeyBrain in the end. Look for the print versions of these titles in the summer of 2013. Other collections are still to be announced. Hopefully these will include the cute little Parisian thief Bandette.