Today, it's been announced that Chris Roberson and Allison Baker are launching a new comic book publisher, Monkeybrain Comics, exclusively through comiXology.

Creators for the new publisher, as well as Chris Roberson of course, include Grace Allison, Nick Brokenshire, J. Bone, Chad Bowers, Wook-Jin Clark, Colleen Coover, Kevin Church, Dennis Culver, Matt Digges, Ming Doyle, Curt O. Franklin, Ken Garing, Chris Haley, David Hahn, Phil Hester, Joe Keatinge, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam Knave, Axel Medellin, Jennifer L. Meyer, Michael Montenat, Ananth Panagariya, Thomas Perkins, Adam Rosenlund, Chris Schweitzer, Brandon Seifert, Chris Sims, Matthew Dow Smith, Paul Tobin, J. Torres, Josh Williamson and… Bill Willingham.

Roberson was recently fired from working for DC Comics, after a number of statements he made about the company, and its perceived lack of ethics. He has written titles such as Superman, Cinderella and iZombie for the company, and had a planned Fairest arc lined up at the time. But as an internationally best selling sci-fi writer, he was always going to have numerous irons in the fire. And this publishing plan was well underway before his little… difficulty with DC.

Expect to hear a lot more on the Friday of San Diego Comic Con during the 7pm Monkeybrain Comics panel. MonkeyBrain are only dealing with creator owned comics, with comics owned by writers and artists together and only take digital publishing rights.

More creative teams with new titles will be announced next week at Comic-Con International during the Monkeybrain Comics panel on Friday, July 13th at 7PM, but the first four comics will be available on July 4th. Here are some samples…

They see Image Comics as one of the biggest inspirations for Monkeybrain, but that the direct market restrains the product they can offer. They do see the marketing very differently however, with no need to promote work three months ahead of release, treating it more like an App, and only marketing a product when it is actually available.

I asked if Image Comics was a natural fit to work with Monkeybrain Comics, in that Image don't take any rights in the work they publish, and so one could handle the print and one the digital with relative ease. Roberson told me that while this was likely, collections of the digital work would be coming out in print from a number of different publishers.

Lauching Wednesday, digitally, on Independence Day, the initial Monkeybrain Launch titles are:

Amelia Cole and the Unknown World by Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire

Aesop's Ark by J. Torres and Jennifer L. Meyer



October Girl by Matthew Dow Smith

Edison Rex by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver. On what happens when you defeat the world's greatest superhero… and what happens to the world next. We can also look forward to a new comic Monkeybrain comic, Freetimer from Roberson with David Hahn…



Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover

We will also see Wander by Kevin Church and Grace Allison. And here are some Monkeybrain Comics promos for July 4th!