We are live on the conference call announcing the official launch of Monkeybrain Comics, a new digital comics line from Chris Roberson and Allison Baker.
Only digital (not print) licenses are part of the Monkeybrain contracts, the books are truly creator owned, with only a small percentage of money being held by Monkeybrain to cover expenses. There are print collections hopefully coming down the road, but nothing planned as of now.
First titles to be released on July 4, exclusively through Comixology. Those titles are:
“Aesop’s Ark” by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer
“Amelia Cole and the Unknown World” by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire
“Bandette” by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
“Edison Rex” by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver
“October Girl” by Matthew Dow Smith
“The only thing we are asking creators to do is to do the book they want to do,” says Roberson. By cutting out the prices associated with the physical printing of comics, the company only needs to pay the creators for their actual work.
The marketing department will be not worry about a lot of pre-release hype, but marketing once an issue is available. “One thing that we’re very much going to be doing is not wasting anyone’s time until they can actually buy the comic.” The cost of marketing is from Monkeybrain, not from the creators.
Monekybrain might partner with other publishers, such as Image, to put out trade collections in the future. This is beneficial to publishers because they pay none of the up front costs of the book’s creation, and would basically be a reprint deal for the publishers. Nothing is stopping Moneybrain publishing the collections themselves through Monkeybrain Books, which is a pre-existing company.
Both the price and the page length are up to the creators, so there isn’t a set price, but the range is from $.99 to $1.99 for the initial books. The prices are, in part, because the coiXology/iTunes store needs all prices to end in $.99
As for format, the digital versions will be the final versions, which means that all print editions will have to be altered from their digital editions, as opposed to the print being the final version, and adjusting the print works to work as digital comics.
Second installment of “Edison Rex” will be issuing back matter, and other creators will be offering additional material, such as scripts or commentary, in the future. Basically, they want to use the comiXology platform to its fullest capabilities, so whatever they can do via the platform, they will try and use it.
Monkeybrain seems committed to not worrying about selling things as new releases, but they embracing the “long tail” of digital media. Part of the reason they went with comiXology is so that they are not going to be going anyplace, but since they own the digital license, if comiXology ever goes out of business, they could theoretically partner with another company, although the purchases probably wouldn’t be able to come over to the new platform.
Right now, Wednesday will be the release day, because of a few factors, the main one being the amount of digital traffic coming through comiXology on Wednesdays, due to the release of new print comics on Wednesdays.
Some of the other creators with books coming out in the future include our own Chad Bowers, as well as Grace Allison, J. Bone, Wook-Jin Clark, Kevin Church, Matt Digges, Ming Doyle, Curt O. Franklin, Ken Garing, Chris Haley, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Joe Keatinge, Axel Medellin, Michael Montenat, Ananth Panagariya, Thomas Perkins, Adam Rosenlund, Chris Schweitzer, Brandon Seifert, Chris Sims, Josh Williamson and Bill Willingham.
In addition to the above information, we have the following previews to share with you courtesy of Monkeybrain of their launch titles:
For the full press release from Monkeybrain Comics, please see below.
Monkeybrain Comics Press Release
New York Times bestselling comic book creator Chris Roberson is celebrating “Independents Day” a little differently than others this year as he and co-publisher Allison Baker launch MonkeyBrain Comics, with a slate of creator-owned titles from some of the top names in the field. MonkeyBrain Comics will debut digitally first on comiXology – the revolutionary digital comics platform with over 75 million comic and graphic novel downloads to date –through a exclusive distribution agreement between the two companies.
Joining New York Times bestselling author Chris Roberson (iZombie, Memorial, Cinderella) under the Monkeybrain Comics umbrella with their own independent titles will be a who’s who line up of creators, including; Grace Allison, Nick Brokenshire, J. Bone, Chad Bowers, Wook-Jin Clark, Colleen Coover, Kevin Church, Dennis Culver, Matt Digges, Ming Doyle, Curt O. Franklin, Ken Garing, Chris Haley, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Joe Keatinge, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam Knave, Axel Medellin, Jennifer L. Meyer, Michael Montenat,Ananth Panagariya, Thomas Perkins, Adam Rosenlund, Chris Schweitzer, Brandon Seifert, Chris Sims, Matthew Dow Smith, Paul Tobin, J. Torres, Josh Williamson and Bill Willingham, among others.
More creative teams with new titles will be announced next week at Comic-Con International during the Monkeybrain Comics panel on Friday, July 13th at 7PM.
“MonkeyBrain Comics was born out of a desire to directly explore what opportunities there were in the newly expanding digital marketplace for creator owned material,” said Chris Roberson, co-publisher of Monkeybrain Comics. “We knew from the get go that we’d want to work exclusively with comiXology, who have become the undisputed leader in the digital comics field with their platforms’ unparalleled reading and shopping experience. And we’re pleased to have so many of our close creator friends along for the ride. I can’t wait to see what fans around the world think about our first batch of releases!”
“We’re excited to be the exclusive digital home of MonkeyBrain Comics,” says co-founder and CEO David Steinberger. “ComiXology’s mission is to get comics into the hands of people everywhere and we look forward to doing just that with Chris and Allison’s stellar line of creator owned comics!”
Available exclusively worldwide via comiXology’s digital platform across the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire and the Web starting July 4th, the initial Monkey Brain Launch titles are:
Aesop’s Ark by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer
Amelia Cole and the Unknown World by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire
Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
Edison Rex by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver
October Girl by Matthew Dow Smith
MonkeyBrain Comics is a new comics imprint of Roberson and Baker’s long-running publishing company MonkeyBrain Books. Over the past decade, MonkeyBrain Books has published a line of prose novels by authors such as Phillip Jose Farmer, Michael Moorcock, Rudy Rucker, Paul Cornell and genre collections edited by such notables as Joe R. Lansdale, Lou Anders and others.
Launching their first titles on July 4th with the slogan “Independents Day” exclusively on the comiXology digital platform, Monkeybrain Comics are currently exploring following up their digital releases with trade paperback collections.
About Monkeybrain Books and Comics
Owned and operated by Chris Roberson and Allison Baker since 2001, Monkeybrain Books was originally founded as an independent press specializing in science fiction & fantasy and nonfiction genre studies. Print titles from Monkeybrain Books are distributed to the book trade by National Book Network, and are available from wholesalers like Diamond Comic Distributors, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram, and from finer booksellers everywhere. In 2012, Monkeybrain launched a new creator-owned digital comics line, Monkeybrain Comics, which is distributed exclusively digitally by comiXology.
About Chris Roberson and Allison Baker
New York Times bestselling writer Chris Roberson is best known for his Eisner-nominated ongoing comic book series iZombie (co-created with artist Mike Allred), his modern fantasy series Memorial (co-created with artist Rich Ellis), the Fables spinoffCinderella mini-series, and his work on Superman, Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, and Elric: The Balance Lost, all of which are available for digital download at http://cmxl.gy/CRoberson. His favorite food is meat, he’s allergic to wheat, and his favorite cocktail is a caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil.
Continued belowAllison Baker has worked in feature film and political media production for over 13 years, while also managing the day-to-day operations of Chris Roberson and Monkeybrain Books. She likes the color pink, enjoys a challenge, fixing things, and is allergic to being bored.
Chris and Allison met at a Ben Folds Five show in 1997, got married in 2000, started their own business in 2001 and had a baby girl in 2004. All three currently live in Portland, Oregon with a lot of books and their two cats, Bubbles and Blue.
About comiXology
Founded in 2007 with the mission of bringing comics to people everywhere, comiXology – in just five short years – has revolutionized the comic book and graphic novel world. From creating the industry leading platform for digital comics to tools and services for brick and mortar retailers, comiXology has lead the charge in exposing new audiences to the rich history and culture of comic books. With the development of the Comics by comiXology digital comics platform – available across iPhone, iPad, Android,Kindle Fire and the Web – comiXology provides the easiest way worldwide for people to enjoy comics at just the click of a button! Regularly ranking as the top grossing iPad app in the entire iTunes App Store, Comics by comiXology was recently selected as a preloaded app on Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Providing digital comics across multiple platforms, comiXology will not stop until everyone on the face of the earth has been turned into a comic book fan.
