Joe's Comics

Joe's Comics was a short lived comic imprint of Top Cow created specifically for J. Michael Straczynski. Top Cow offered JMS his own imprint after the impressive sales of Rising Stars. He accepted and named it Joe's Comics. In his own words,

I looked around at all the other heightened titles — Chaos, Awesome, Megadeathtech kinds of titles designed to be impressive and massive — and said, "How about just...Joe's Comics?" As in, "I'd like some of Joe's Comics," or "Read at Joe's," with a big 1950s diner clock logo.

Rising Stars was moved to the new imprint. JMS's next projects, the critically lauded Midnight Nation, and Delicate Creatures, an illustrated fantasy parable, were published there as well.

There were plans to publish an anthology comic, with the first issue being Dream Police, which was described as "'Dragnet' in the dreamscape." JMS's plans were to write two comics a month for Joe's Comics.

JMS had a falling-out with Top Cow over movie rights for Rising Stars, and after communication broke down their relationship came to a stand-still, with JMS holding back the final (pre-written) issues of "Rising Stars". JMS and Top Cow finally came to an agreement after a nearly two-year hiatus where JMS retained the rights to Dream Police (which will now be published by Marvel Comics), and to the name and logo for Joe's Comics. Although the last three issues of Rising Stars are coming out under Joe's Comics at the end of 2004, for all intents and purposes the imprint is currently defunct.

External links

• Original announcement by JMS on the b5jms mailing list
• Lying in the Gutters column for 23 June2003: scroll down to "RISE AND FALL" for a history of how relationships broke down between JMS and Top Cow