Broken Frontier

After the startling announcement last month that Sojourn, Sigil, Way of the Rat, Negation, The Path, and Scion were all to receive brand new TPB collections of previously uncollected issues, Broken Frontier contacted Checker publisher Mark Thompson to find out what fans can expect for the foreseeable future….

BROKEN FRONTIER: For those unfamiliar with Checker, can you tell us what the company’s specialty is?

MARK THOMPSON: Checker is a graphic novel specialty publishing company. We focus on all illustrated comic book material.  Anything of high quality is fair game to us.  We have published Winsor McCay (Winsor McCay: Early Works Volumes I-VIII), Milton Caniff (Steve Canyon), Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel: Early Works Volumes 1-2), and even Clive Barker (Hellraiser: Collected Works Volumes 1-3, Tapping the Vein) to name just a few.

BF: Checker is mostly known for reprinting older material, long out of print.  CrossGen appears to be the most contemporary material you’ve chosen to publish thus far—why and how did you become interested and involved in doing the CrossGen reprints?

MT: Quality is quality whether it’s 100 years old or 100 minutes old.  As you can see from our backlist, such as A Bit of Madness and Supreme and the Flash Gordon material, our books collect work that stands the test of time.  The CrossGen material is just such a high quality body of work.

BF: Most fans are aware that the Walt Disney Company purchased CrossGen’s holdings some years ago.  Did Disney approach Checker with the idea of doing these reprints or did you go to Disney with an interest?

MT: We approached Disney because it appeared they had diverse plans for the CrossGen acquisition.  As luck turned out, part of their plan was to license reprints, which is our bailiwick.

BF: Since Disney does own the rights, what negotiations had to be enacted regarding copyright issues, licensing, etc.?

MT: There is a standard copyright notification which is present in all agreements of this nature.  We simply adhere to copyright notices of all our rights holders we do business with.  We operate like more traditional book industry publishers in that the rights holders maintain all their copyrights and grant us limited usage… similar to how it works with J.K. Rowling, John Jakes, Stephen King, etc.

BF: What drew Checker to the CrossGen properties?  What was it about these titles in particular that made you think they would be perfect for your company?

MT: Again the quality and name recognition.  Fans are already familiar with the material and are looking for the trades.  We are proud to be associated with their publication and enjoy getting the books out to a wider market than the comics originally saw.

BF: What are your future plans for the CrossGen material?  Will you be printing only the previously uncollected CrossGen titles or do you plan on reprinting the collected editions which had been published by CrossGen before the company’s collapse?

MT: That is yet to be determined.  Our initial focus would be to get all the material which was uncollected out there.  Then unpublished material, followed by reprinting trades or new collections of previously published trades.

BF: Fans have noticed that your announcement regarding the printings have made no mention of certain series such as Brath and Chimera.  Are there any plans for those and other titles or for CrossGen’s Code 6 line, titles such as El Cazador, The Crossovers, and Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang?

MT: We can’t comment on particular tiles at this point, but all the titles mentioned merit collecting into trade paperback form.

BF: All of the titles announced in your press release were unfinished series and thus the collections will eventually end with unfinished storylines and possibly even without enough material to fill a regular size trade.  Do you feel that this fact may hurt sales of this material?  Do you have any plans on how to deal with this dilemma?

MT: As I mentioned, our plans are to release these initial trades and go from there.  I think the demand will win out.  The material is so good that fans are willing to give a pass on somewhat incomplete endings.  It is also debatable between the differing types of endings… one man’s cliffhanger is another man’s “unfinished” story.  Regular comic book fans are familiar with and used to ongoing storylines.