Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada made a brief announcement at a Saturday morning Comic-Con panel about a new co-production deal with independent comics studio Top Cow. And I do mean brief; he showed a few slides of sample art from Amazing Spider-Man, mentioned how much fun it would be to work with Top Cow founder Marc Silvestri, then moved on to the next topic. But Newsarama has extracted more details from Quesada and Top Cow COO Matt Hawkins, outlining how Top Cow will take on outsourced projects from Marvel in addition to continuing their own line of comic books. “Top Cow will pencil, ink, color, and letter scripts provided by Marvel,” the report says, “[and] will also get the rights to publish eight Top Cow/Marvel crossover titles during the term of the deal.” Though Marvel will still exercise approval over which of its characters will appear in those comics, and what format the issues will take, it’s still a sweet deal for Top Cow, as inter-company crossovers are almost always hot sellers.
This is the second major deal for Top Cow in less than a month—a few weeks back, they cut a deal with Union Entertainment that could eventually lead to video games starring established characters like Witchblade along with new properties. Looks like Top Cow’s editor-in-chief, Renae Geerlings, will have plenty to keep her busy when she moves into her new office tomorrow.