Did anyone read CrossGen comics?

[Gotham Central]

I've always thought that it was somewhat tragic that CGE folded. For a new comics company, CrossGen managed to create a very expansive and detailed universe in a very short period of time. The company managed to pump out quite a few comics fairly quickly as well as numerous trades (likely one of the reasons the company went under).

Its too bad that a company like DC did not gobble it up.

Did anyone else enjoy these comics?

 

[Subjective]

I enjoyed Meridian, El Cazador and Way of the Rat. The problem I had was that everything was supposed to tie in together so stuff like, Way of the Rat wasn't set in China, it was set in some planet. Same thing with Ruse and other titles which always bugged me, and that all the super hero powers were basically of the same origin and over branded the comics.

 

[firehawk12]

Checkers either bought or licensed the rights to CrossGen and have been reprinting some of their books, but the reprints are so rare and expensive it's almost super niche.
For me, the biggest tragedy was the fact that they were issues away from concluding the story and went out of business before they could even do that much.

I definitely admired the company and the spirit that it had. I think they were one of the first to push for salaried artists and writers and they tried to push books that were different. I enjoyed Meridian probably the most - although, in some respects, Runaways is almost a spiritual sequel to that book.

They also introduced some very good ideas. Digital comics that were animated and voiced and the idea of a monthly anthology TPB that collected the issues in that month into one cheap volume. It's too bad no one has bothered trying the latter again.

That said, ultimately the mismanagement of the company brought it down. It tried to do too much too fast and a lot of the creators got screwed during the last few months of the company.

There were some great titles both among the Sigil-verse and the non continuity creator owned books... it's just too bad that most of them died with the company.

On a personal note, I believe that Barbara Kessel basically retired from comic writing after Crossgen... which in itself is very unfortunate.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Its too bad that a company like DC did not gobble it up.

Disney bought CrossGen. Whether Disney is planning on doing anything with the CrossGen properties, I don't know.

 

[ELURIA]

I read Route 666 #1, which I liked alot, and then read... nothing else

 

[Gotham Central]

Yeah I know that Disney bought the properties, but they did nothing with them. DC or Marvel would have actually used them.

 

[Gotham Central]

I enjoyed Meridian, El Cazador and Way of the Rat. The problem I had was that everything was supposed to tie in together so stuff like, Way of the Rat wasn't set in China, it was set in some planet. Same thing with Ruse and other titles which always bugged me, and that all the super hero powers were basically of the same origin and over branded the comics.

I actualy thought that that was pretty cool. Its the same basic premise as Stargate. Indeed it seems like Stargate ended up borrowing some elements of the Atlantean history used in the sigilverse.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Loved CrossGen. At the time, they dominated my monthly pull list as I preferred the Sigilverse over the Marvel and DC Universes. Mystic, Sigil, The First, Ruse, Scion, Medieval Lady Death...and Negation, my God, was simply my favorite book out there period back then. I still lament over how CrossGen fell apart, but I still plan to reread all of those titles one day.

Its too bad that a company like DC did not gobble it up.

Disney bought CrossGen. Whether Disney is planning on doing anything with the CrossGen properties, I don't know.

They only bought the rights to the CrossGen properties to get their hands on Abadazad, which they turned into a series of children's novels in the hopes it could be their Harry Potter. They published three novels, but the series really hasn't taken off in the U.S. like they expected and the future of the line remains in question for now.

As for the rest of the CrossGen properties, Disney is perfectly content to just let them sit on a shelf and collect dust. I heard rumors that Disney has tons of acquired properties that they're not doing anything with.

 

[firehawk12]

Like I said, Checker Book Publishing has the rights to at the very least reprint all of the Crossgen books and have been slowly publishing all the unpublished work left in the catalogue.
I have no clue how those might be doing, so I don't imagine any original content being published although the Checker website suggested that publishing new Crossgen Sigilverse material may be possible.

 

[Stevil2001]

Does Checker BPG even do original content? All of the books I can think of from them have been reprints.

 

[firehawk12]

Not that I know of. They buy back catalogs and do reprints primarily. But I would guess that if there really is a lot of demand, it shouldn't be a lot of work to just do a commission of the final arc of the series?
Although, I suppose at this point, no one probably even remembers how the Sigil-verse series was supposed to end.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Things were supposedly to come to a head with the Sigil-bearers at the conclusion of the Negation War mini-series, which would have resolved most of the mystery regarding the Sigilverse and establish a clean slate for those titles afterwards.

Although only two issues of Negation War were published, the entire series was scripted out. Artwork for the third issue was finished, but retained by the artist due to lack of payment from CrossGen prior to declaring bankruptcy.

 

[Nerroth]

Well, El Cazador (not a bad series) was one of the few stand-alone storylines - it wasn't part of the same CrossGen/Negationverse timeline...

...well, unless you count 'our' history as serving as a suitable one for the current generation of humans.


Solus wasn't bad (Solusandra!) the Negation stuff was great, and Negation War had promise (and a very clever inversion - or rather, negation - of the Superman ethos in issue 1) but it's a shame we may never see any continuation.


And away from CrossGen, I wish the Red Star series was steaming along properly - I never got past issue one of Sword of Lies.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

They only bought the rights to the CrossGen properties to get their hands on Abadazad, which they turned into a series of children's novels in the hopes it could be their Harry Potter. They published three novels, but the series really hasn't taken off in the U.S. like they expected and the future of the line remains in question for now.

That's like Marvel's purchase of Malibu. They weren't interested in Malibu's Ultraverse; they just wanted Malibu's coloring department. And due to the royalty structure on the Ultraverse titles, Marvel has no intention of resurrecting the characters.