Hey IMWANers. I just announced this to the comics press and I thought I'd let y'all know. I'm very excited by this. I know there's a few manga fans here, and I hope you'll check it out next year.

Here's the press release!

NOBLESVILLE,IN - Today, Grounded Angel, a twice-weekly
webmanga at Komikwerks (http://www.komikwerks.com) announces
a print and merchandising deal with Starline
Multimedia (http://www.starlinemedia.net). Starline is
targeting March 2006 as the launch date for the first
180-page manga digest.

"I'm extremely excited about the opportunity to see
Grounded Angel in print," said Steve Horton, scripter
and co-creator of Grounded Angel. "It's been a
lifelong ambition of mine to walk into a comics store
or bookstore and see my own graphic novel there on the
shelves, and now it's going to happen."

"We’ve been aiming to bring more top quality webcomics
to the mainstream fanbase, and working with Grounded
Angel has been a wonderful experience," said Starline
representative Kei White. "We expect it to be highly
received due to its solid story, well developed
personalities and highly attractive artwork. Grounded
Angel is definitely going to find a long-term home in
the hearts of fans this spring."

Grounded Angel stars an unwitting girl named Gloria,
who finds out during the course of a tumultuous day
that she's an angel, the herald to the end of the
world. Both good and evil have a vested interest in
keeping her true nature from revealing itself. Gloria
soon finds herself on the run from supernatural
forces, wielding a power she doesn't understand.

Joining Horton on Grounded Angel is Indonesian manga
artist Vivi Erlanita. Her style has been compared to
an early Rumiko Takahashi. Vivi is penciling, inking,
and manga-shading the title.

Providing manga-style letters is indie comics veteran
letterer Johnny Lowe (10th Muse).

About Starline Multimedia

Since the summer of 2004, Starline Multimedia has been
publishing and merchandising quality artists and comic
books. With a high standard of publication quality and
unparalleled artist freedom, SL continues to bring new
creators like Erlanita and Horton (Grounded Angel),
and Saya (CENTRALCITY) out into the mainstream comic
market with a splash, while continuing to advance and
expand the audiences of veteran webcomic creators and
artists like Greg Dean (Real Life), Dave Kellet
(Sheldon), and Steve Troop (Melonpool).

About Komikwerks

Komikwerks LLC was founded in 2000 by Patrick Coyle
and Shannon Denton, and is now partners with equity
partner, New York based ibooks. Komikwerks is a comic
publisher dedicated to publishing high-quality,
professional level, creator-owned comics through
digital and other distribution methods. Komikwerks.com
launched in March of 2001, and has been named a SciFi
Channel "Cool Site". Contributors to the Komikwerks
site and series of print anthologies include comic
industry veterans from major print publishers such as
Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse.

Congrats, Steve.

Congratulations!

Pretty soon y'all will have a professional comics writer posting here! Watch out!

...Oh, you say Kurt is a pro comics writer, too?

Nevermind!

-Steve (I Might Want A Noose)

Thats awesome! Congrats!

Thanks, everyone!

Great news, Steve! Congrats!

Jim Lawless

Sticky love for IMWAN's newest supastar member ...

Superstar! (falling down, knocking over a table)

This has been my lucky five weeks. I'm on the verge of another deal with a different manga company based on an character bible and script that I put together. They want a complete outline and pitch by tomorrow.

Crazy, huh?

And yes, I'm nervous as hell!

Congratulations, Steve! You'll do fine!

Thanks, Frank. I feel like Norm in that Cheers episode where he blows the interview for his dream job (tasting beer) by having a meltdown at his first meeting with the boss.

Well, he read my pitch and now he wants me to call him! On the phone. Over the phone line. With a voice on the other end! God! I hate talking on the phone!

(... not unstickying this until we find out what happened with the phone call ...!)

I need to paste in that page from Box Office Poison where that guy gets his comic rejected and imagines being socked in the stomach, but I'm too lazy.

Well, it didn't exactly get rejected, it's on "hold" because they're pursuing one of the other ideas presented to the big boss at the meeting.

Good news is, the editor invited me to pitch more ideas in the future, and he's going to contact me in case that other idea doesn't pan out.

Ah well.

In the "Like I Need To Tell You This" department: You can't let one (quasi) rejection get you down. You have to believe that someone wants to publish your stuff, just like you believe that there are a lot of people (many of them IMWANners !) who want to read it. What I've seen of your stuff is too good to remain "unpublished" for long.

Good news today: Bluff Magazine is printing my article on poker bar leagues! Yay!

It's not like I'm not published; I'm just not published in fiction.

Thanks for the well wishes, Mr. Saxon.

Keep up the good work, and let's hope you get your fiction published soon. Maybe you can get a deal like JK Rowling.

Heh, her first deal wasn't that great. She renegotiated pretty quickly, luckily.

Thanks!

Feel free to take this one off sticky...

Okee-dokee. Unstickying this and archiving it on the Drawing Board (where all our SUPASTARS get archived). Feel free to bump this when you have new news and we'll move it back upstairs.