Amazon Launching Comic Book Imprint

Amazon is getting into the comic book biz, the publisher revealed today. Jet City Comics will stand as Amazon's comic book and graphic novel imprint, launching today with Symposium #1 by Christian Cameron and Dmitry Bondarenko. Symposium is a new entry into the Foreworld Saga (a side-story known as a SideQuest) and retails for .99 cents on the Kindle Store. Symposium marks the first comic book entry into the Foreworld Saga.

Jet City Comics will continue with new Kindle-exclusive titles throughout the year, including comics from industry names like Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Mike S. Miller. Most of the titles appear to be adaptations of previous works, including some George R.R. Martin works. The comics will retail digitally in serialized form on the Kindle Store and will later be bundled as graphic novels. Print collections will eventually be available from Amazon and comic book retailers.

Jet City Senior Editor Alex Carr said in a press release, "We’re working with an incredible, hand-picked team of comics professionals, writers, artists, and translators, who have done an amazing job developing and expanding these inventive stories. I’m looking forward to the response from comics readers and fans."

Here are the details on Jet City's 2013 slate according to the press release:

• An original comic adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s story “Meathouse Man,” illustrated by Raya Golden, and a re-release of “The Hedge Knight” by Ben Avery and Mike S. Miller, a prequel set in the universe of Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series (the inspiration for the hit HBO program Game of Thrones). “Meathouse Man” will be released as a single issue comic in digital format in October 2013; “The Hedge Knight” will be released as a collected graphic novel in print and digital formats in November 2013; and its sequel, “The Sworn Sword,” will follow in early 2014.

• An adaptation of Hugh Howey’s bestselling dystopian novel Wool by comics veterans Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and illustrator Jimmy Broxton, where the remnants of humanity live in a massive silo hundreds of stories below the surface of the ruined and toxic landscape of Earth. Wool was a #1 bestseller in the Kindle store and is one of the most-reviewed science fiction novels on Amazon, with almost 6,000 customer reviews. It will be released as a Kindle Serial, as six individual comics issues starting in October 2013, followed by a collected graphic novel in 2014.

• Six original comics from The Foreworld Saga, the bestselling alternate history series that began with The Mongoliad (a serialized novel collaboratively written Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey and Cooper Moo). The first Foreworld comic, “Symposium #1” by author Christian Cameron and Illustrator Dmitry Bondarenko, details the origins of the Shield-Brethren in Ancient Greece in the days following Athens crushing defeat to Sparta in 394 BC. It goes on-sale today, with new installments releasing monthly before being collected in a series of graphic novels in 2014.

Amazon previously dabbled in comics in a partnership between Amazon Studios and 12-Gauge Comics with 2012's Blackburn Burrow by Ron Marz and Matthew Dow Smith.

Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He often wonders whatever happened to Billy's RadBug.

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