IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing (Idea Design Works, LLC) is a comic book publisher known for Steve Niles’ horror title 30 Days of Night. It has grown to include both original series as well as licensed property.
History
IDW was formed by entertainment executives and comic book artists Ted Adams, Alex Garner, Kris Oprisko and Robbie Robbins. The goal of the fledgling company was to build a strong client base and work on projects they enjoyed, ranging from movies, to comic books and trading cards, to name a few. Services that IDW initially provided included character design, conceptual artwork, trading card games, online and print style guides, and of course, comic books.
IDW’s client base includes: Activision, BBC, Cartoon Network, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Simon & Schuster, Upper Deck, and various movie studios.
Comic Books
The first title published by IDW was the popular vampire series 30 Days of Night written by Steve Niles, which immediately started a bidding war between three major movie studios for the film rights. The company’s second series, Popbot, garnered two Spectrum Gold Awards.
Licensing deals followed soon after, building a strong readership and fan base with established characters from other medias. Titles included CSI, Underworld, The Shield, 24, Angel and Ghostbusters. Along with TV and movie characters, IDW secured the rights for Star Trek, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Silent Hill and Castlevania, among other video game.
In 2008 IDW acquired the license to BBC’s Doctor Who franchise, allowing two concurrent titles to be released, one focusing on colorized reprints from 1970-1980 from Doctor Who Magazine. The other title, Doctor Who: Provocateur was an original mini-series featuring the Tenth Doctor, and written by the TV series script writer Gary Russell. The success of the miniseries launched a follow up mini, a series of one-shots, and ultimately an ongoing series in 2009.
Imprints
In 2009 IDW formed an imprint with EA Games, called EA Comics, to adapt the video game company’s library of titles, initially with Army of Two and Dragon Age.
In early 2013, Jeff Kline founded Darby Pop Publishing in order to use the incredible visual medium of sequential art, better known as comic books, to tell new stories.
Classic newspaper comic strips have also been collected and reprinted by IDW under the imprint Dean Mullaney’s Library of American Comics. These include the following:
- Archie: The Swingin' Sixties: Complete Daily Newspaper Comics
- Blondie
- Bloom County
- Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea
- The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy
- The Family Circus
- King Aroo
- Al Capp's Complete Li'l Abner
- The Complete Little Orphan Annie
- Polly and Her Pals
- Rip Kirby
- The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy
- Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was
- Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles
- The Complete Terry and the Pirates
- Tarzan by Russ Manning
- X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan
- Bringing Up Father
- Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays 1941-1944
- Skippy: Daily Comics
- Bloom County: The Complete Library
- Gasoline Alley
- Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth
- Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim
- Steve Canyon
- Superman: The Golden Age Sundays #1 - 1943-1946
- Superman: The Atomic Age Sundays
- Superman: The Silver Age Dailies
- Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics
- Wonder Woman: The Complete Newspaper Strip
Other Media
Konami acquired the video game rights, and part ownership, of CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations.
In 2007 Columbia Pictures released an adaptation of 30 Days of Night, directed by David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and produced by Sam Raimi (Spider-Man).
Dimension Films also has two movie deals in place with Steve Niles and IDW, for Wake the Dead and Hyde.
And, has optioned the rights for Steve Niles’ Aleister Arcane.
