posted Wednesday March 11, 2009 11:06am EDT

Aw Nuts! Jericho to Return as a Comic Book

CHICAGO - March 5, 2009 - Devil's Due Publishing (DDP) has announced a deal with CBS Consumer Products to publish a new comic book series tied to fan-favorite Jericho, the one-hour drama series that garnered critical acclaim and ran on CBS for two seasons, from 2006-2008. The series centered on the residents of the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States. The comic book series will pick up where the television program left off, answering many questions for its passionate fans. DDP has teamed up with the show's creators and producers to develop an authentic story that will hit comic book retailers this fall.

This is great news for fans of the ill-fated show, and it speaks to a larger trend: fan-favourite TV shows are finding new life via comics (think Buffy: Season 8 , Farscape, and Firefly). While this is all well and good, I wonder how long it will take networks to realise that there is a smaller, secondary, much longer-tailed niche market for internet-only episodes of fan-favourite shows?

BOOKMARK

categories: Comics, TV

tags: Jerich, cbs, firefly, Farscape, buffy

3 comments

1. HeatherJ
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday March 11, 2009 11:40am EDT

Not sure what to think about this, honestly. I LOVED Jericho and was very sad to see it end. However I am not a comic book or graphic novel person (I've tried, but it is just not me) so I doubt I'll ever pick up any of these. It is nice to know that the story will be continued but I won't know what happens since I'm not a fan of the format.

Those internet-only episodes would be GREAT though.

2. pablodefendini
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday March 11, 2009 05:45pm EDT

You've just made my argument for me. as much as I love comics, they're not for everyone. Additionally, TV and sequential storytelling are two completely different animals, and while expanding a show into other media is admirable, there is certainly something lost in the translation (in either direction).

While keeping a cast (and to a lesser degree, a crew) together past a series' network production may be challenging in terms of costs, I think networks would be well-served in exploring the possibility, at least in these types of niche shows with very loyal followers.

3. Huw Bowen
Thursday March 12, 2009 12:54pm EDT

I think the problem is that Internet-only shows cost pretty much exactly the same as regular tv shows - especially if they are going to have a potential DVD release. If they were made noticeably cheaper, then the fans aren't going to stick around, because we like shows at least partly based on their quality. DVD-only releases would be the same kind of thing, but with an easy way to make money - and there don't seem to be many of those around, either. Comics are much, much cheaper than films or TV!