Cross Generation Comics or CrossGen was an American comic book publisher and entertainment company that operated from 1998 to 2004. The company's assets were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2004, and designated to Disney Publishing Worldwide. In July 2010, Disney re-established the brand through Marvel Comics, who announced plans to revive CrossGen titles.
In 1999, the company acquired the Orlando-based multi-genre fan conventionMegaCon, from founder James Breitbiel.[1] Breitbiel became CrossGen's Marketing and Distribution Director.
In January 2000, CrossGen Comics, Inc. debuted with CrossGenesis, a sneak-peek at the CrossGen universe. It provided an outline of the universe, worlds, and characters of CrossGen's flagship titles that would be released six months later. Gina M. Villa, head of creative departments, and Mark Alessi wrote a history of the Sigilverse before any comics were written.[2] The head creative team consisted of Barbara Kesel, Mark Waid and Ron Marz. Unlike other comics publishers such as DC Comics and Marvel Comics, which rely mainly on freelance writers and artists, most of CrossGen's talent were salaried employees of the company and worked out of its headquarters in Oldsmar, Florida. Later creators such as J.M. DeMatteis worked freelance, with CrossGen publishing finished properties. The company's publications covered a variety of genres with characters inhabiting a single shared universe.[3][4][5]
The protagonists of the first wave of CrossGen comics were linked in commonality by the Sigil each character had received. It was a branding on their body, a marking that granted them unusual powers. The Sigil, and the story of the Sigil-Bearers, was a prominent aspect of the narrative.
Following titles
In November 2000, the Homeric myth The First was released and, steadily over the next three years, CrossGen released many more titles.
The company enjoyed great initial success, with fifteen Harvey Award nominations in 2002.[7]
In 2003, other titles were released expanding the fictional universe: the sword and sorcery epic Brath; Chimera, a limited series about a Sigil-bearer on the far reaches of the Universe; the pirate adventure El Cazador; and two other titles that explain the origin of the Sigil-bearers, Solus and Mark of Charon.
Titles such as Negation and Crux blended genres. Although most CrossGen titles shared common elements (such as a Sigil, the presence of a Mentor and a member of the god-like First), the titles rarely crossed over with each other. The major example of crossing over was Sam of Sigil, who spent four issues in the world of Brath and part of one issue in the world of Meridan, with the latter period also being told from Sephie's perspective in issue #20 of Meridan. There was one company-crossover event, the Negation War, but was never concluded.
CrossGen Entertainment, Inc. (CGE)
CrossGen Entertainment logo
In 2003, CrossGen Comics, Inc. changed its name to CrossGen Entertainment, Inc. (CGE), and formed eleven wholly owned subsidiary companies, which represented its broad-based entertainment products and offerings. These companies were to act independently of CGE, functioning as interior business units while all working towards CGE's overall goals. With this arrangement, all current and future projects would be managed and guided by Crossgen's founding principles. These projects consisted of:
CrossGen Intellectual Property, LLC: CGIP held all CGE content intellectual property (IP).
CrossGen Technologies, LLC: CGT held all CGE technology IP and managed technology IP creation, development, production, and application.
CrossGen Publishing, LLC: CGPub published all print projects, including CGE Ancillary, Code 6, CrossGen Universe, and foreign publishing.
Code 6 Comics, LLC: A subsidiary of CGPub, C6C published Code 6 publications.
CrossGen Comics, LLC: A subsidiary of CGPub, CGC published CGU print publications.
CrossGen Media, LLC: CGM was responsible for feature films, television programs, video games, websites, merchandise, and additional interactive products.
CrossGen Productions, LLC: A subsidiary of CGM, CGP was to produce feature films and television programs.
CrossGen Interactive, LLC: A subsidiary of CGM, CGI was responsible for interactive publishing, video games, and role-playing games.
CrossGen Education, LLC: CGEd published educational materials.
Comics On The Web, LLC: COW was responsible for Internet publishing, including Comics On The Web.
Crossgen Entertainment logo
CrossGen Comics Entertainment, Inc.(CGE) was set up to take over the publishing of all existing comics properties. Its logo would appear on anything that came from CrossGen. CGE acted as a publisher for affiliated companies that would retain full ownership and control of their property and would reap the benefits of joining with a larger company.
Code6
Code6 Logo
Code6 was another imprint of CrossGen Entertainment created to publish titles set outside of the Sigilverse, such as The Red Star, Demonwars, and The Crossovers. All titles published with the Code6 logo would be owned by both the creator and CrossGen Entertainment, Inc. with the majority of ownership resting with CGE. CrossGen would pay an upfront page rate and then split all rights and revenues 75%-25%.
Code6 is the Florida Police signal code for an escaped prisoner. It was used to describe the attitude of the creators working at Code6.
Comics on the Web (COW)
One of Crossgen's innovations was the sale of comic subscriptions via the Internet. Subscribers could view all of Crossgen's titles through a web browser. The web comics reproduced the fine color of the original, but the lettering was sometimes not quite legible; hovering over the word or thought bubble caused it to enlarge to a readable size, a feature developed in Flash by Gabo Mendoza of Gabocorp Studios. The online library was estimated to contain 160 issues and 4,400 pages by the end of 2002. CrossGen was among the first comics companies to publish online.
Bankruptcy
In 2003, CrossGen found itself in a scandal over freelancer payments, exposing systemic financial problems.[8] As the news reached comics fans, sales were affected and creative staff, such as Gina Villa, Brandon Peterson, and Ron Marz, began to abandon the company.[citation needed]
Some industry observers noted that the company's difficulties became apparent shortly after the Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstore chains discontinued stocking CrossGen's trade paperback collections, and returned huge numbers of unsold books for credit/refund, more than wiping out the publisher's optimistically low reserves against returns. In an interview with Marc Alessi on the Dollar Bin podcast, the root cause of CrossGen's financial collapse was said to be the result of a large decrease in the value of Perot Systems stock that was largely backing the company's financing. The financial plan was to lose money in the first six years before earning profits in the seventh year through movie and television deals.[9]
In late 2003 the company restructured, selling MegaCon to show organizer Elizabeth Widera.[10][11]
CrossGen filed for bankruptcy in June 2004 and ceased publishing, leaving titles such as Sojourn, Negation War, Brath, and many others cancelled mid-story.[12]
In July 2004, Disney Publishing was interested in licensing CrossGen content but, upon discovering the company's bankruptcy, began seeking to acquire its assets instead. Founder Alessi loaned the company $75,000,[13] but was unable to prevent the company's takeover. On November 15, Disney purchased CrossGen's assets for $1 million with plans to publish four prose hardcover novels based on writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Mike Ploog's Abadazad.[5][14]
CGCreators.net was created to attempt to track the subsequent doings of various staff associated with the company.[15] It has since ceased operations.
As of 2008, various CrossGen domain names and URLs were held by cybersquatters.[16]
Checker Books
In 2006, Checker Books obtained the rights to publish trade collections of various CrossGen series, starting with Sojourn. A total of nine collected editions were part of the agreement: two each for Sojourn, Negation, and Scion, and single volumes for The Way of the Rat, Sigil, and The Path. There are no plans by Checker Books for more traveler-sized collections.
Mark Thompson, the publisher of Checker Books, traveled to New York in 2007 and spoke with Disney representatives about reprinting further collections. No agreement has been made at the time, but according to Mark Thompson, he indicated that this would happen.[17] In a quick follow-up interview he expanded on things, explaining how difficult it has been to pin down what is considered 'full distributed' and to solve this they are: "planning to propose to Disney that we 'catch up' by putting out omnibus collections".[18]
In 2008, Checker Books published three CrossGen titles.[19] These were:
Negation Hounded, Vol. 3 (writer Tony Bedard, illustrator Paul Pelletier, ISBN978-1-933160-63-4, 172 pages)
Sigil V. 6 Planetary Union (writer Chuck Dixon illustrator Scott Eaton, ISBN978-1-933160-67-2, 172 pages)
Sojourn Volume 6 - The Berzerker's Tale (writer Ian Edginton, illustrator Greg Land, ISBN978-1-933160-72-6, 172 pages)
Marvel began to publish Ruse and Sigil in March 2011 as four-issue miniseries.[21] Both completed their run, and a third Crossgen title, Mystic, premiered in August 2011.[22] Two more books, Route 666 and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, were announced during Fan Expo Canada in late August, and were set to start in February 2012, but were never published due to low interest in the previously released series.[23]
In August 2022, Marvel Comics announced CrossGen Tales #1, a trade paperback collection that contains the reprinted original first issues of Mystic, Sigil, Ruse, and Soujourn. This was the first time that CrossGen titles would be available in a digital format.[24] An omnibus collection of the original Sigil series was released in 2023.
Titles
Sigilverse
The majority of CrossGen's titles took place within a shared universe, informally dubbed the Sigilverse by CrossGen fans.[25] CrossGen published the following titles in the Sigilverse. Most titles are listed in order of appearance. Mini-series and one-shots associated with an ongoing title are listed thereunder.
CrossGen collected several of the above titles in trade paperback format.
Compendia
CrossGen published two monthly anthologies, referred to as compendia, that reprinted several titles from the main shared continuity. Each issue contained between 6 and 11 issues.
Forge (13 issues, reprints of Crux, Meridian, Negation, Sojourn, The Path, Route 666)
Edge/Vector (13 issues, reprints of The First, Mystic, Ruse, Scion, Sigil, Way of the Rat, and Solus)
After 12 issues, Edge was renamed Vector due to a trademark conflict with another company. A third compendium called Caravan was never released.
Roughly halfway through the run of the compendia, their format changed from standard comic size to a half-page sized digest format, usually with a higher page count. CrossGen later used this compendium format to collect runs of single titles, such as Meridian and The Path, to reported success.
Promotional and related titles
CrossGen Sampler (a free promotional comic which included several pages from each of CrossGen's first five titles)
CrossGen Primer (a promotional comic bundled with an issue of Wizard magazine)
Wizard CrossGen Special (a later promotional comic bundled with Wizard magazine)
CrossGen Illustrated (softcover book with art and information on several Sigilverse titles)
Pre-release Reader review copies of the first issue of several series, some in black and white.
Additional titles
In addition to its Sigilverse comics, CrossGen published a number of additional titles:
↑ "Newswatch: From Zero to Fifteen: Newcomer CrossGen Zooms Past Marvel and DC, Second Only to Fantagraphics in Harvey Nominations", The Comics Journal #242 (Apr. 2002), pp. 23-24.
↑ Dean, Michael: "Complaints from Unpaid Freelancers Shine Spotlight on CrossGen Cash-Flow Problems", The Comics Journal #255 (Sept. 2003), pp. 13-15.
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the property of The Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman as Timely Comics, and by 1951 had generally become known as Atlas Comics. The Marvel era began in August 1961 with the launch of The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and many others. The Marvel brand, which had been used over the years and decades, was solidified as the company's primary brand.
Semic Comics (French:[semik] is one of the leading comic book publishers in France. It is officially known as Semic S.A.
Meridian is a comic book series published by CrossGen Comics. It was written by Barbara Kesel, and penciled by a number of artists including Joshua Middleton and Steve McNiven. Meridian ran for 44 issues, from July of 2000 to April of 2004.
Jackson "Butch" Guice is an American comics artist who has worked in the comics industry since the 1980s.
Negation is a comic book series published by CrossGen. Tony Bedard was the writer for the entire run. Paul Pelletier was the artist for most of the issues, with an occasional fill-in artist on some issues.
Ruse is a comic book featuring detectives Simon Archard and Emma Bishop. Originally published by CrossGen, it was revived in 2011 by Marvel Comics as part of its acquisition of CrossGen titles.
Charles Dixon is an American comic book writer, best known for his work on the Marvel Comics character the Punisher and on the DC Comics characters Batman, Nightwing, and Robin in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Sojourn is a fantasy comic book series published by CrossGen. The series follows the adventures of the archer Arwyn and her companions as they battle undead dictator Mordath. Unlike other CrossGen comics, Sojourn does not center on a Sigil-Bearer, but instead depicts a villainous Sigil-Bearer whom the heroes are tasked with defeating. It ran for 35 issues from 2001 to 2004 until it was forced to end by the bankruptcy of CrossGen. For a time, this series was Crossgen's highest grossing comic.
Sigil is an American comic book series published by Cross Gen Entertainment from July 2000 to December 2003, ending at issue forty-two. Sigil was one of the publisher's first four titles, originally created by Mark Alessi and Gina M. Villa. The book is one of many from the publisher that took place in the Sigilverse, or the Cross Generation universe.
Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW), formerly known as The Disney Publishing Group and Buena Vista Publishing Group, is the publishing subsidiary of Disney Experiences, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Its imprints include Disney Editions, Disney Press, Kingswell, Freeform, and Hyperion Books for Children. It has creative centers in Glendale, California, and Milan, Italy.
Negation War is a comic book series published by CrossGen Comics, and serving as a culmination of the metaplots of nearly all of CrossGen's other titles. It was cancelled after only two issues, in spring 2004, before the company declared bankruptcy and ended production on all their titles. It was intended to answer many, if not all, of the questions surrounding CrossGen's metaplot, allowing the company to move on to new titles and perhaps a new company-wide metaplot.
Laura DePuy is a colorist who has produced work for several of the major comics companies, including DC Comics, Marvel Comics and CrossGen.
Mark Albert Alessi was an American businessman who was the CEO of a number of companies, most notably as the founder of comic publisher CrossGen where he created a number of the titles.
Antony J. L. Bedard is an American writer and editor who has worked in the comic book industry since 1992, and in the video game industry since 2012. His best known video game works include several installments in the Call of Duty franchise, such as Black Ops 4, Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard, and Modern Warfare III. As a writer, he is known for the co-creation of Negation and his writing for Route 666 for CrossGen Comics, as well as his run on Marvel Comics X-Men spin-off Exiles, and multiple series for DC Comics including Birds of Prey, Green Lantern: New Guardians, Supergirl, and a trilogy of San Diego Comic-Con exclusive comics involving Colonel Sanders. He also wrote the screenplay to the 2008 animated feature Turok: Son of Stone.
Andrea Di Vito is an Italian comic book artist.
Barbara Randall Kesel is an American writer and editor of comic books. Her bibliography includes work for Crossgen, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics.
Crux is an American comic book published by CrossGen Entertainment from May 2001 to February 2004. It was cancelled due to bankruptcy in 2004. Crux was one of the later titles that came first in a sort of second wave of Crossgen titles which included Sojourn and Brath. It detailed the exploits of six Atlanteans who were put into stasis and are awoken 100,000 years later.
Scion is an American comic book published by CrossGen Entertainment from July 2000 to April 2004. It was cancelled due to the bankruptcy of Crossgen Comics Inc. in 2004.
Solus is an American comic book series written by Barbara Kesel and illustrated by George Pérez. It was published by CrossGen Entertainment from April to December 2003. It ran for eight issues until it was cancelled when Crossgen went bankrupt in 2004. This series was a late comer to the Crossgen line-up, but was intended to serve as a pivotal title within the overall Sigilverse history.
Rodolfo D. Nebres is a Filipino comics artist who has worked mostly as an inker in the American comic book industry. Known for his lush, detailed inklines, Nebres' most prolific period was in the late 1970s and the 1980s.
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