Following off the report that newfound publisher Joe Books is planning to release comic books and novels set in the world of Disney’s Big Hero 6, we now have three other reports from Bleeding Cool of Joe Books planning to republish a number of comic adaptations of several of Disney’s notable properties in addition to brand new titles.
Cinestory
First up, Joe Books will begin rolling out omnibus editions of Disney’s Cinestory adaptations of their feature films. What is a ‘Cinestory’? Basically it’s a whole film translated panel-by-panel into a comic book. If you know what a novelization is (a movie translated into novel form) than that’s basically how the ‘Cinestory’ works. You are literally ‘reading’ the movie. Think of that what you will.
That being said, they come at a good price range. $20 bucks for hundreds of pages (Frozen has 300 pages while the Disney/Pixar and Disney Princess collections are 800 pages each). The books are set to come out in December.
Darkwing Duck
Next, Joe Books will be republishing the entirety of Boom! Studios’s Darkwing Duck comic book series written by Aaron Sparrow and featuring art by James Silvani. Titled ‘Disney’s Darkwing Duck: Definitely Dangerous Edition‘, the collection clocks in at 400 pages and contains a brand new epilogue and bonus material. The omnibus will arrive in January and will go on sale for only $19.99. And according to a post on Silvani’s tumblr, the collection will lead into an all new Darkwing Duck ongoing series coming in 2015 with Sparrow and Silvani set once more as the creative team behind the book.
They also announced another Cinestory collection, this time an adaption of the classic Cinderella movie. Not much to say about this one, although the listing does mention the upcoming live-action version of Cinderella, which is set to come out in March of next year. It’s possible that the collection will land in retail stores sometime around that date.
Monthly Subscription
Lastly, Joe Books revealed that they will be publishing a series of Disney comic strips delivered straight to your digital device with a monthly subscription. No physical release is planned (at least for now).
The comic strips will be written and drawn by Amy Mebberson, famous for her Pocket Princesses fanfic comic strip that depicts the everyday lives of various Disney princesses as they live and interact with each other.
The comic strips will consist of new original content officially approved by Disney. Here’s a first look at one of the comic strips, this one featuring Frozen:
And that does it for all the planned titles from Joe Books (that we know of). It would seem that if there’s anything that we know about these guys, they are definitely being utilized by Disney as a way to get back into doing all-aged licensed comics (a move that probably wouldn’t have worked as well through Marvel).
We’ll definitely keep you updated as more information about Joe Books and their titles become known.
Are you interested in any of these titles? What are your thoughts on Joe Books?