Joe's Comics was a short lived American comic book imprint of Top Cow Productions created specifically for J. Michael Straczynski. Top Cow offered JMS his own imprint after the impressive sales of Rising Stars. He accepted and named it Joe's Comics. In his own words:
| “ | I looked around at all the other heightened titles -- Chaos, Awesome, Megadeathtech kinds of titles designed to be impressive and massive -- and said, "How about just...Joe's Comics?" As in, "I'd like some of Joe's Comics," or "Read at Joe's," with a big 1950s diner clock logo. | ” |
Rising Stars was moved to the new imprint. JMS's next projects, the critically lauded Midnight Nation, and Delicate Creatures, an illustrated fantasy parable, were published there as well.
There were plans to publish an anthology comic, with the first issue being Dream Police, which was described as "Dragnet in the dreamscape." JMS's plans were to write two comics a month for Joe's Comics.
JMS had a falling-out with Top Cow over movie scripts for Rising Stars, and after communication broke down their relationship came to a stand-still, with JMS holding back the final (pre-written) issues of Rising Stars. JMS and Top Cow finally came to an agreement after a nearly two-year hiatus where JMS retained the rights to Dream Police (which has now been published via the Icon-imprint by Marvel Comics), and to the name and logo for Joe's Comics. Although the last three issues of Rising Stars were published under Joe's Comics at the end of 2004, for all intents and purposes the imprint is currently defunct.
External links[]
- Lying in the Gutters column for 23 June 2003: scroll down to "RISE AND FALL" for a history of how relationships broke down between JMS and Top Cow
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