This week, IDW launched something new and different --- an art gallery. The San Diego Comic Art Gallery is an interesting addition to both IDW's scope of business and to San Diego's comics-related offerings. The first artist featured for this gallery? None other than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Kevin Eastman. Check out the images above for a look at the launch of the gallery, the art included in the show, and IDW's new offices.

IDW had this to say about the gallery:

 

The San Diego Comic Art Gallery is a unique, new and dynamic space, designed to educate and engage the local San Diego community and the region of Southern California with the sequential comic book and graphic arts. The SDCAG will create a permanent home in San Diego as a showcase for this celebrated art form; already so pervasive in our culture, thanks to the meteoric success of comic-based films, television and entertainment, and already so associated with the San Diego area, thanks to Comic-Con International.

Owned and operated by IDW Publishing, a renowned International Publisher based in San Diego, and with a retail space, a gallery of original art from comics and animation, and actual working artists on the premises, The San Diego Comic Art Gallery is an entirely new kind of venture. Located in the NTC in Liberty Station, The SDCAG is joining an already vibrant arts community.

Through events, author and artist appearances, art installations and celebrations, The San Diego Comic Art Gallery will become a destination to worldwide fans of the medium, and cement San Diego’s status as a Capital of the comic arts, while becoming an integral part of the immediate community.

 

This seems like an awesome addition to the comics industry, albeit one that a limited number of fans will get to experience in person. It's surprising that there aren't more comics galleries. There are some comic shops that feature original art, often by rotating artists and available for purchase, and there's even the Mission Comics and Art Gallery in San Francisco. IDW, as a publisher, is poised to bring in a wide variety of its talent, and hopefully talent that works elsewhere as well. Certainly there will be interest from comics fans visiting San Diego in just about a month for ComicCon International!

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