Titan Comics launches creator-owned line in July

A Titan is entering the world of creator-owned comic books.

Titan Publishing, the home of licensed film and TV magazines and other products since 1981, launches Titan Comics in July as a new imprint for new and original comics as well as classic graphic novels and collections.

Titan put its foot in U.S. waters a few years ago with Tank Girl and Lenore, but the past 12 months have seen a significant growth in the market, and Titan Comics publisher Nick Landau felt it was the right time to premiere a line of books that could share shelf space with the many creator-owned titles of Image Comics and other companies as well as the superhero-centric Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

"Having been in the comics business for so many years, we have a lot of people we have been wanting to work with, but have just been waiting for the right moment," Landau says.

Titan Comics launches in July with a pair of creator-owned miniseries, the sci-fi Chronos Commandos: Dawn Patrol by writer/artist Stuart Jennett (Marvel U.K.) and the newly colored Numbercruncher by X-Men: Legacy writer Simon Spurrier and artist P.J. Holden that follows a dead mathematician trying to find a way to be reincarnated and reunite with his beloved.

They'll be joining four new collections that month: Thrud The Barbarian by writer/artist Carl Critchlow (Magic: The Gathering; writer Das Petrou and artist John Watkiss' Ring of Roses, collected in color for the first time and featuring a lawyer and a criminal investigating the deaths of six powerful priests; and two never-before-published volumes of Jack Katz's fantasy The First Kingdom.

Two more series will debut in September — the gothic Gravestown by writer Roger Gibson and artist Vince Danks (Harker), plus writer/artist Jay Gunn's Surface Tension — while Death Sentence by writer Monty Nero and artist Mike Dowling (Rex Royd), a book that centers on a sexually transmitted disease that gives people incredible powers but kills them six months later, begins in October.

Each of the new releases will be available in print and digitally the same day on Comixology and other platforms.

Landau is especially excited for readers to discover Death Sentence and First Kingdom. "The first because it is a masterfully constructed sci-fi psycho-drama," he says, "and the latter because for over 25 years I have been a fan of Jack Katz's First Kingdom and following on from our success with the six-book Simon & Kirby Library, we are ever so proud that Jack has completed the series — which originally stopped publication halfway through — for the launch of Titan Comics."

There is a strong influence from the vaunted British comics anthology 2000AD — Landau at one point edited it himself "back at the beginning of time," he says, and Titan creators such as Critchlow, Holden and Dowling were also contributors.

"We've input our collective years of experience and are very definitely plotting our own course, so you'll be seeing a very broad selection of titles — interestingly, no superheroes in the initial waves," Landau says.

The imprint's primary focus at first, though, will be finding the next wave of great, unpublished British talent and those following the marks made in America in the past few decades by the likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons and Bryan Hitch.

"The U.K. is just brimming with them, and we will certainly be publishing some of the great comic creators of the future," says Landau, promising that Titan will also spotlight top new creators from the USA and elsewhere around the world.

Titan attends many comic conventions in America, Europe and all over the world where they meet with creators, in addition to receiving submissions via its website (which is being relaunched in time for San Diego Comic-Con).

Landau says he always looks for the total package of exceptional storytelling, writing and artwork. "Everyone here has a passion for comics, and we'll only publish material that we think is great."