Kickstart Comics To Launch: Aims To Bring Comics To Screen

Jason Netter, prolific producer of television and film, is set to launch Kickstart Comics as a division of his own Kickstart Entertainment with the hopes of developing comic books that can be sold in Hollywood.

The above statement wouldn't be noteworthy — the comic book industry is flush with small companies whose main aim is to sell their books to Hollywood — if not for the details and the talent involved.

Larry Young (of AiT/PlanetLar) and iFanboy favorite comic book renaissance man Jimmy Palmiotti have been tapped to oversee the initial line of books, and Kickstart has already made distributon deals with major retail chains, inclluding the 800lbs gorilla of retail, Wal-Mart. This distribution deal is for at least 24 books in the first year. What kind of books is unclear at this point, but signs seem to point to this being an original graphic novel type situation, and not single issue comics, but we'll see.

It's easy to be cynical about this announcement and bemoan the fact that there is a new comic book company out there whose only goal is to turn out comic books as movie options. But the fact of the matter is, if you're not Marvel or DC, that's pretty much the business model in comic books these days. Your favorite smaller comic book companies producing some of your favorite independent comic books operate this way. The hope is that, while trying to sell books to Hollywood, some good (or great) comics are produced along the way.

Joshua Williamson already tweeted that he has a few OGNs lined up for the fall. B. Clay Moore has some work on track as well, in addtion to projects by Phil Eisner, Mark Sable, and the team of Adam Freeman and Marc Bernardin.  Ultimately, it's a good thing that there are more outlets for comic creators to tell their stories.

UPDATE:

Jimmy Palmiotti has tweeted a clarification to the story. Despite reports, he's not overseeing the entire line, just some of the books. I would imagine that he will be splitting editing time with Larry Young. Palmiotti also described the line as family-friendly OGNs, which was to be expected with a Wal-Mart distribution deal. We've contacted Jimmy Palmiotti for further comment. We'll bring you more information as we get it.