It’s ComicsPRO Week, as the trade organization for comic retailers is meeting in Glendale, California right now. That means there are some surprisingly notable news items hitting, as publishers put on their Sunday Best to woo the comic shops of the world. That results in a robust week of things I liked or didn’t like in Comics Disassembled — with no news about Diamond included, because it’s still just wheels turning in the background at this point, while still including some personal faves in the mix — so, let’s get to it.

Exquisite Corpses, Being Exquisite

This is the comic I already labeled as the most likely original comic to hit big this year, and its formal announcement did little to dissuade me of that theory. It’s called Exquisite Corpses, and it’s a new Image series from writer James Tynion IV and artist Michael Walsh. It’s also a lot more than that. It is, as Tynion put it in his recent newsletter, “a high-octane horror comic that sees twelve of the deadliest and most colorful killers in the world descend on a small town to see who will be the last killer standing. It’s the story of those killers, the ordinary people of that small town who have to survive their deadly melee, and the wealthy families that sponsored the killers and unleashed them in the first place.”

That in of itself sounds fantastic. A horror comic that pairs Tynion’s love of impeccably designed (and fully cosplayable) characters with the writer and Walsh’s storytelling gifts as well as that concept is just a slam dunk. But what I really love is everything else around it. As Tynion wrote in that newsletter, he sees it as something that can expand into other titles, becoming their own “action-horror answer to the Energon Universe,” an independent micro line of death and delight. That’s a great idea, especially with a laundry list of other standout creators like Pornsak Pichetshote, Tyler Boss, Jordie Bellaire, Becca Carey, and more helping guide and craft it. This was apparently built almost like a game, with the squad bringing the energy of Razorblades: The Horror Magazine and The Silver Coin to it at the same time. It sounds impossibly interesting, with it expanding well beyond just Tynion and Walsh.

More than that, they’re making this the biggest swing possible in more ways than just creative ones. It’s a 60-page debut for $4.99, there’s going to be a signing tour, the idea of a tabletop RPG game has been floated, and there are some other secret things I’ve heard of that will help make this all the more exciting. This isn’t just a comic. It’s the blueprint of a blockbuster, if the market responds to it. More than that, it’s the culmination of a lot of the plans the Tiny Onion crew have been building up. It’ll launch in May. I’m intrigued, and expect more related this to hit SKTCHD at some point.

Comic Publishers, Expanding (in More Ways than One)

Last week’s edition of this column featured some doom and gloom bait as a couple publishers laid off some of its staff, so I wanted to share some news that counter-balanced that a bit. It turns out that everyone isn’t moving in that direction, as three different publishers announced new hires and promotions this week. Some of them actually came a while back, as Sarah Brunstad moved from Marvel to Mad Cave and Troy-Jeffrey Allen joined her at that publisher, with the former as an editor and the latter as a digital marketing specialist. Meanwhile, IDW announced a trio of new hires and roughly one billion promotions, as the wheels keep on turning at that publisher in typically unexpected ways. Lastly, Oni Press revealed four promotions and five new hires for a wide variety of roles, with the publisher moving in an aggressively positive direction.

These are all good if only because the expansion of comic publishers suggests some level of health at each, which is nice after some of the more tenuous vibes in the direct market of late. Oni confirmed that a bit, as its head Hunter Gorinson called 2024 the publisher’s most successful year yet, per The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald. That’s great! And as Heidi also noted, the publisher has some tricks up its sleeve in 2025 with the return of Adventure Time — including variant covers from luminaries like Caroline Cash, Erica Henderson, and Tillie Walden — and the launch of its own line of Compact Comics-like editions in the Compact Collections line, which will start with Adventure Time and Rick & Morty. That is smart.

But assuming they still publish Bad Machinery, I’d really, really love to see that webcomic from John Allison somehow come to life in that format. That might be incredibly difficult given the orientation of the comic (it’s a landscape read), but I believe in everyone’s ability to figure that problem out for my personal enjoyment.

One other Oni note: I liked its announcement of the Oni 8 Retailer Appreciation Program. It reminds me of some of BOOM!’s previous efforts, and this one focuses on a mix of returnability, enhanced discounts, back catalog sales, overship programs, and more. It’s the kind of thing that is somewhat meaningless to readers, but can make a big difference for retailers. It seems like the squad over there is doing what it can to work with retailers, something that I’m sure the ComicsPRO set appreciates.