Magnetic Press

The weekend is here! Take a look back at what’s happened in the past seven days. New comics, new stories, new podcasts, new art being made — it’s all part of the ComicsAlliance Weekender!

Separately, Lion Forge and Magnetic Press are two of the most exciting and innovative up-and-coming independent publishers in the entire comics industry. Both publishers have a commitment to diversity and inclusivity that other companies would struggle to match, and both publishers have been lauded with acclaim in a relatively short amount of time. It only makes sense for the two companies to work together, with Lion Forge announcing yesterday that it has acquired Magnetic Press and will release upcoming Magnetic Press titles through an imprint known as Magnetic Collection, which will be curated by Magnetic Press president and publisher Mike Kennedy.

The weekend is here! Take a look back at what’s happened in the past seven days. New comics, new stories, new podcasts, new art being made — it’s all part of the ComicsAlliance Weekender!

Magnetic Press is one of the publishers to watch this year, and its efforts in scouring the world for the best comics and creators to bring to western audiences has resulted in the release of amazing comics that might never have seen the light of day otherwise. Today, ComicsAlliance can exclusively reveal the seven original graphic novels that form Magnetic Press's Fall/Winter line-up, including the first two titles from Ulises Fariñas and Storme Smith's imprint Buño

It was only last month that Comixology launched Comixology Unlimited, a new subscription-base service with a Netflix-style model that gives access to a library of titles to read for a flat monthly fee. Since then, there's been one major question among readers: What exactly are we going to get on there? Now, a month after the launch with titles from Image, Dark Horse, Valiant and IDW, the digital comics platform has announced the first wave of additions, set to hit Unlimited on June 27 --- including the first three issues of Afterlife With Archie, the first five of Ryan Browne's God Hates Astronauts, and the first eight issues of Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered.

Cartoonist Ulises Fariñas is perhaps best known for his work on Judge Dredd and the Star Wars activity book Where’s The Wookie?, but now he’s turning his hands to comics publishing by launching a new comics imprint in partnership with Magnetic Press. Buño will feature titles curated by Fariñas and his publishing partner Storme Smith.

In its first year, Magnetic Press made quite a dent, earning two Eisner nominations for Tony Sandoval’s Doomboy and Dave Dorman’s Wasted Lands Omnibus. Magnetic is heading into its second year with some big followup plans. The publisher announced Wednesday that it will launch 10 new titles --- a mix of original graphic novels, reprint material and what looks to be monthly comics, though Magnetic hasn't made entirely clear what the formats for each book will be.

For the fourth year in a row, Diamond is holding their Halloween ComicFest, where comic shops will have special Halloween-related events and offer a bunch of free comics. Basically, it's like a Halloween-themed Free Comic Book Day, which seems like a fun deal all around. Plus, some shops will be selling mini-comic packs of 25 comics that people can give out to trick-or-treaters! There are 21 free comics available this year, and you can check them all out below!

Meka took me by surprise. Admittedly, this state of affairs was, in significant part, was derived from the previous JD Morvan/Bengal collaboration I'd read: Naja, and a blurb that pitched it as "giant robot vehicle crashes in war-zone leaving human pilots stranded and fighting for survival," causing my expectations of this title to veer from "very excited" to "considerably neutral." And to a point, that's an accurate summation, but a superficial one, a starting point, because what Meka essentially is, is a thoughtful treatise on the "in-between" of war, lifted into exceptional territory by the sheer, stunning power of Bengal's art.