A tantalizing bit of news broke during this afternoon's "Cup O' Joe" panel when Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada teased the crowd during his presentation with a slide showing only the CrossGen sigil and "2011."
Details were not forthcoming during or after the panel, although Quesada did go on to tell Comic Book Resources that the CrossGen catalog gave Marvel the opportunity to delve into some much-needed "genre publishing." (I assume by "genre" he means "everything besides superheroes.") At this stage, however, it is apparently too soon to say anything else about the project.
For those of you relatively new to the comics biz, CrossGen was a line of comics that started in 1998 and lasted until 2004. Founder Marc Alessi sought to create a DC/Marvel-style "shared universe" from scratch, with a wide variety of storytelling genres bound together by a broad common thread. The books ran the gamut from fantasy and horror to comedy, pirates, and detectives, and for a while the company had quite a lot of buzz. Unfortunately, their finances got wobbly pretty quickly; by the time I was returning to comics in the early 2000s, it was already rare to hear the word "CrossGen" without hearing the word "trouble." In the end, Disney bought all of CrossGen's properties back in 2004. Then Disney bought Marvel (as you may have heard) a few months ago. In hindsight, I'm embarrassed this move hadn't already occurred to me.
Personally, I look forward to seeing what comes of all this. I've heard a great deal about CrossGen over the years, and they gave some of the current market's bigger names their start in the business, but I'm not sure I ever actually saw one of their books on a shelf. Apparently, that will change next year.
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I really liked most of CrossGen’s titles, especially Sojourn and Way of the Rat.
My take on the CBR video interview is that Marvel may make CrossGen into an imprint which would be its sole focus to produce genre based stories outside of the superhero market. Basically making CrossGen into what Vertigo is for DC.
I hope this means we’ll get those last two issues of Sojourn made. Good news, though. Disney really should have been on this sooner.
I just got through reading most of Mark Waid’s 12 issues on RUSE, a detective comic with a few paranormal twists thrown in. Not too shabby. I’d have loved to read more of it. That could be possible now, I suppose.
Soooo excited about this! Now can we finally get Tony Bedard to Paul Pelletier to finish “Negation War”? This entire line was leading up to this event and then they went out if business after only releasing 1 or 2 issues (it’s been awhile, sorry I can’t remember for sure). PLEASE LET HIM FINISH IT!!! I absolutely loved CrossGen’s entire line and they had some fantastic talent working on their books. You wanna see how Jim Chueng became a great artist? Read “Scion”. The first issue his art is really not good and by the end, he was phenomenal.
The only thing I’ve ever heard of Crossgen is from that Mark Waid interview from AICN. Not excited.
Never read a single thing from them.
I was a big fan of Crossgen back in the day (Negation is the one book of theirs that I re-read every couple of years) so this is the news from SDCC that brought me the most happiness. While I would love to see the conclusion to Negation War (and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for that matter), I am not going to get my hopes up…
I was thinking more toward what happen to Negation.
Marvel can make these properties into something Disney can really exploit.
Sojourn, Mystic & Route 666 that would easily be loved by female and male readers. Sigil and Negation: both hardcore sci-fi. Way of the Rat and the Path: a bit of Martial art action. El Cazdor could be the next pirates of the Carribean.
These were great stories whose memory have been sullied by some poor financial management in the past. Treated right, these will be great again.
Unless they get Bedard involved, I’m probably not interested.
Fat chance: Bedard’s exclusive over at DC!
I loved CrossGen! I think I have almost ever issue published. This makes me want to go back and reread it all.
That’s pretty exciting. I loved Sojourn and would love to see it come back. I’m glad to see other comic readers liked CrossGen – it became a bit of a joke at my LCS after the company went under.
Tony Bedard went on a 2 year exclusive deal in 2007…. I haven’t seen anything to say he upped that
CrossGen gave us great artists.
Wow. What a blast from the past. I haven’t thought about these titles in years. Can’t say I’ll be on the edge of my seat, but good for them.
People are making it seem like this was thirty years ago…it wasn’t that long ago. But I’m happy to see this universe returning. I’m hoping Marvel keeps it seperate from their universe. I really enjoyed the freedom they had to create, but at the same time the unifying theme of every single book. It had something for everyone and it was always interesting to pick up another book at anytime and be able to find a connection to it through either the sigils or something else.
I’m praying they don’t ruin anything with it and keep it true to its roots.
CrossGen actually attempted to program comics over a broad variety of subjects and demographics, and maybe that was partly why it failed… which would be too bad. That being said, I was never interested in reading an issue of anything they every printed, but that doesn’t disqualify the effort.
I’d buy Ruse or Way of the Rat if they started coming out with new issues and decent creative teams. I might get into Sojourn if I knew they were actually going to finish it. I wonder if this means they’ll rerelease some of the old trades so new readers can catch up with what was happening.
I loved almost all their books, I’d definitely read Route 666, Sojourn, Meridian, Negation, Crux. Hell almost anything they put out. Oh and El Cazador. Love that stuff.
CrossGen really showed what a great writer Ron Marz is.
and Meridian always had beautiful art
Yes! There’s at least a CHANCE Negation War will be finished! Whoooo!!!!!!
I realize it’s a small, small chance, but it’s better than no chance at all.
Route 666. It was awesome. Now, let’s see it finished.
I loved Route 666, Ruse and the Negation. I also enjoyed Sojourn, Mystic and Sigil. The trade I had of the first six issues of Ruse literally fell apart I read it so much. Honestly, this has been my secret hope since Disney bought Marvel so I think it’s an excellent idea. I might actually be able to replace that book since it’s currently in pieces (haven’t the heart to actually throw it away).
Just noticed somewhere else, that SIGIL and RUSE are the two books they’re starting with, in two 4 issue limited series.
Though it’s not the SIGIL I remember…Sam as a 16 year old girl?
RUSE sounds familiar, and will be written by Mark Waid, which is good, cause he wrote the only really good issues of this originally.