Today at Oni Press’ “RevolutiONIzing Comics” panel at New York Comic Con 2012, Editor-In-Chief James Lucas Jones and Marketing Coordinator Tom Shimmin rolled out an expansive line-up of new titles that the Portland-based publisher will be debuting in the coming months. Included in that is a pair of new series by rising star writer Cullen Bunn, a new graphic novel take on Babes In Toyland, a series of original webcomics, a reboot of Oni’s website, and a focused “re-envisioning” of the publisher in 2013.
Writer Cullen Bunn is slowly entrenching himself as the new golden boy of Oni Press these days. After the success of The Sixth Gun (and news of it being adapted for an NBC show), Bunn is back with Oni for more with a Sixth Gun spinoff titled Sons of the Gun co-written by him and co-creator Brian Hurtt and illustrated by The Secret History of D.B. Cooper’s Brian Churilla. This miniseries, which is scheduled to debut in February, will be spend each issue focusing on an individual member of General Hume’s haunted henchmen.
In addition to that, Bunn is partnering with Oni stalwart Joëlle Jones on a Viking horror series titled Helheim scheduled to debut in March. Oni handed out a black-and-white preview of the series during the panel, which shows a small settlement of Vikings trying to stave off a horde of supernatural monsters led by an evil witch.
Another new entrant into the Oni Press line-up is a twisted version of a classic in Wars In Toyland. Created by writer Joe Harris and artist Adam Pollina, this rendition of musical comedy Babes In Toyland takes a new vantage point of the rise of the teddy dictator, Roxbury, and the young brothers Alex and Matthew trying to mount a revolt against the dictator and his toy soldiers.
"Ever since I was a kid watching Laurel & Hardy on Thanksgiving Day, my demented thoughts have turned to wooden soldiers making war on one another," Harris is quoted as saying in a press release. “Wars In Toyland is a story we've been looking to tell for a long, long time. It's a dark fantasy about the things we throw away, the things we can't let go of and growing up, in a broad sense, even though it really sucks sometimes."
In addition to these announcements of individual series, Oni announced it was putting a renewed effort into its online presence with a planned relaunch of OniPress.com to become a “full-fledged content hub” with serialized webcomics being published every weekday. Tentatively planned for a January debut, the new OniPress.com will relaunch with two new comic series alongside three unnamed backlist titles from its immense print catalog. The two new titles are A Boy & A Girl by former editor Jamie S. Rich and artist Natalie Nourigat and buzz by newcomers Anath Panagariya and Tessa Stone. These two series were previously mentioned in Oni’s Comic-Con International: San Diego marketing blitz, and this will see them make an online debut before they see print.
Although the relaunch is still months away, Oni mentioned they already have a second wave of new comics in the works to join the inaugural two. In April, Return Of King Doug artist Wook-Jin Clark comes back with a super sentai story based in Atlanta called Megagogo. Joining that will be a strip from comics commentator Chris Sims, writer Chad Bowers and artist Scott Kowalchuk called Down! Set! Fight! covering a crazy spin on football with mascots reportedly fighting each other.
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