Boom Launches Free Webcomics Site

Press Release

BOOM! Studios today launches the BOOM! Studios Webcomic site at www.boom-studios.com, allowing readers to enjoy online access to select BOOM! titles for free! BOOM! Studios will be releasing a page a day from six different series beginning with the site's historic July 14th launch.

Starting off, readers will be able to read the critically acclaimed fan-favorites NINJA TALES, ZOMBIE TALES Volume 1, HERO SQUARED, 2 GUNS, SHMOBOTS, and CTHULHU TALES Volume 1! BOOM! will be continuing to do this all year round with many different series.

The first salvo of pages features a wide variety of incredibly talented creators, from a ZOMBIE TALE by KINGDOM COME writer Mark Waid with Marvel Comics artist Carlos Magno, to legendary FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE creators Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, as well as writer Steven Grant, known for his original run on THE PUNISHER. SHMOBOTS writer Adam Rifkin is no slouch either, having directed cult-faves such as DETROIT ROCK CITY and THE DARK BACKWARD. Rifkin is also well known for scripting the feature films MOUSEHUNT and UNDERDOG. These are just a few of the stellar talents on tap for BOOM!'s new initiative.

At launch, each series will have a handful of pages already posted so that fans can immediately sample the tone, characters, and storyline of each series. Thereafter, BOOM! will update each series with a page a day, averaging five pages of content per series, per week.

"This is a great way to get the word out about BOOM! titles," said Chip Mosher, Marketing and Sales Director for BOOM! Studios. "When people come to the site for free comics, they'll be able to take a look at the other quality books we're putting out. The interface ties all the parts of our website - the store, current titles, free stuff - into one beautiful package. New fans who might be stopping by for cool zombie or Cthulhu content can get turned on to what BOOM!'s doing across the board and check out the print editions in local comic book shops or at Amazon.com and mass market bookstores via our distribution deal with Perseus Books. We expect that people who aren't BOOM! fans will discover our series and titles and be excited to own print copies."

This is not BOOM!'s first foray into the digital distribution of their titles. Earlier this year, BOOM! and MySpace, the world's most popular online social network, announced a partnership to provide the MySpace Comic Books community with free editions of BOOM! Studios' highly anticipated new comic book series, NORTH WIND. Throughout the five-issue mini-series, MySpace users were able to view online or download all the issues of NORTH WIND for free exclusively on the MySpace Comic Books profile (http://myspace.com/comicbooks) the day each issue hit store shelves.

After pioneering the first simultaneous release of a comic book online and in stores with NORTH WIND, issue #1 sold out and went to second printing, and BOOM! Studios saw an unprecedented 30% increase in orders from issue #3 to issue #4.

"We're seeing a greater demand for digital comics, whether it be from casual readers or hardcore fans," said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid. "Partnering with MySpace showed us that releasing our books for free online actually helped our sales. After sampling BOOM! comics electronically, readers went out to buy physical copies. The BOOM! Webcomic site will continue spearheading this game-changing initiative."

"Working in the entertainment industry I see that, every day, the internet keeps changing things," said Ross Richie, Co-Founder of BOOM! Studios. "Companies are shaped around the internet, but for BOOM!, we're shaping the internet around us."

The BOOM! Studios Webcomic site goes live July14th at www.boom-studios.com.