In a scenario that could be reminiscent of the creation of Image Comics way back when, there are things stirring that lead us to ask the question: Are Former Valiant Comics Staff Starting a New Publisher? Let’s lay out all of the clues.

UPDATE: Writer Matt Kindt appears to have joined the ranks.

This is the most promising evidence. An interview from October where Hivemind Co-Founder and Partner Dinesh Shamdasani and Vice President Brand and Content Strategy Hunter Gorinson (both former Valiant Comics honchos) sat down for an interview with ICv2. Among the Bloodshot movie talk and regular “inside baseball” discussion was this clue:

What about the publishing side? Do you have any itch to get involved in publishing again?

Shamdasani: A foregone conclusion for us. Comics is our love. We’ve quietly been cooking something really cool up. Many people would say it’s probably a bad idea, though. Hunter and I love comics more than anything in the world. Hunter’s explaining where our Thursday starts, where our Sunday ends. All I’m thinking about is all the comic books I’m buying in between and have already bought, and sitting up here, looking at them all and eyeing a couple things that I know I want. I’m going to see how expensive they are. There was no break for us. The day Valiant ended was the day that whatever this bad idea that we have is started. We’ve been cooking up some books; we have a plan; there’s books that are done; there’s books in production; there’s friends we’re working with. Whatever we do, the only thing that I know for sure we’ll do is make sure it’s super, super, super high quality. It’s got to be higher quality than we’ve approached before. We’ve just got to take the time. Gorinson: We’ve known each other for a little bit of time. I think you would know that there’s probably nothing that Dinesh and I are as passionate about as the medium of comics. I think it has always been a foregone conclusion that whatever we did with Hivemind, in film, TV, or any place else, we would get back into comics in some capacity. Watch this space.

What did he say? It continues.

Are you going to do it on your own or package for somebody else?

Shamdasani: We’ll do it on our own. Do you have a timetable?

Gorinson: Expect news soon. Shamdasani: Q1 next year or slightly earlier than Q1 next year is where we’d like… Gorinson: Expect news soon.

“Expect news soon”. Since this interview is from then, this is now soon.

We have more evidence as both Dinesh and Hunter dropped these hints on social media.

B A D I D E A pic.twitter.com/zVkd4RlSUu — Hunter Gorinson (@hgorinson) November 11, 2019

So there’s that. We have #BadIdea, certainly playing off something teased very subtly in the interview, and now being used to full effect as they guys are leaning quite hard into it. But we have even more.

Writer Joshua Dysart, the writer of HARBINGER from (wait for it…) publisher Valiant Entertainment then changed HIS Twitter.

In everything I see the God I don't believe in. pic.twitter.com/eqewyEIRsz — Joshua Dysart (@JoshuaDysart) November 10, 2019

And we have more as artist Lewis LaRosa, known very well as a Valiant Cover artist, yes, also changed his Twitter cover, but we also got this…and this is comic book art.

And then we saw that Warren Simons, who used to be the Editor-in-Chief of (yup, you guessed it) Valiant Entertainment, changed his own Twitter cover to one themed with the #BadIdea logo.

And they just kept coming:

A process shot of a close up from @lewislarosa of my favorite cover he has ever put together!!! This thing is going to be EPIC!!! #BadIdea pic.twitter.com/1bHlnFmAUs — Dinesh Shamdasani (@dinesh_s) October 3, 2019

And, as hinted at above, we have this update that writer Matt Kindt likes the sound of this Bad Idea.

The newest update we have is another Tweet from Dinesh, and now he’s calling out the Best Damn Comic Book Writer on the Planet Jeff Lemire along with Robert Venditti!

So that’s really all we have right now, but I think we’re in for some very good news. If all these clues add up the way I think they are going to, we’ll have a brand new comic book publisher run by some very talented people in the very near future.

Well, we do know a few more things.

We know you can catch Dinesh in an interview this week on the Get Valiant! podcast right here on the Outright Geekery podcast network and on their Youtube channel, and he’s sure to mention more about this Bad Idea thing there.

*Update* 11/29/19

There was a cryptic video posted yesterday of a person tobaganing with a song being played backwards. Here’s the clip…

Here it is in reverse….

So, what does this mean….?

We also know you can keep up with everything #BadIdea over at the Bad Idea Fans Facebook group (hmmm, how did they know?)

Are Former Valiant Comics Staff Starting a New Publisher?