Bad Religion/Epitaph founder's new comic book company (properly) unveiled
After several months, some more news has finally surfaced about the comic book distribution company being launched by Epitaph Records' Brett Gurewitz and 30 Days of Night creator (and former Gray Matter guitarist) Steven Niles. They recruited Halo-8 creator Matt Pizzolo to help launch the company now called Black Mask Studios. According to a Wired report, Pizzolo talked about disrupting the current comic model:
It's become this monopolized walled garden where you're only allowed to grow two things: superheroes and movie treatments. We're going to open new space outside the entrenched market where we can cultivate more subversive experimental and literary comics to reach broader audiences.
For the companies first release, they plan to put together a "compilation" called Occupy Comics It will include work from Mike Allred, V for Vendetta/Watchmen creator Alan Moore, David Lloyd, Molly Crabapple, Douglas Rushkoff and many more. Brett also talked about the project:
Comics and punk have a lot in common, being transgressive art forms with under-appreciated potential for social influence. Leveraging Matt's brilliant Occupy Comics model with Black Mask Studios might be disruptive, in a really good way, for both artists and fans.
Wired has some art samples from the first release.