Marvel and Soleil to Joint Publish

I told you yesterday that I was going to start doing the press releases differently because they can be detected as "duplicate content" by the search engines. Being press releases, I am not sure if that negatively affects The Rundown or not, especially since many other sites only leave them up for a short time and once they are shuffled off our front page, they are only detected by their permalink (I think). At any rate, I also said that I was still going to release a few of them in-full, depending on their nature. This is one of those, due to the nature of the information, as well as the beauty of the art, which I wanted to include. It's simply gorgeous!

This is an official Marvel press release:

Marvel, in collaboration with acclaimed French comic publisher Soleil, is proud to announce that they will be publishing some of Europe's most popular comics in English for the first time! Producers of cutting edge science-fiction and fantasy comics loved across the world, Soleil's an industry leader in bringing fresh voices to the comic medium with their diverse offerings. Now American audiences can discover why talent from all over the world line-up to produce to high-quality graphic novels with Soleil!

Some of Soleil's most popular releases, such as Sky Doll, Universal War One, Samurai and Le Fleau Des Dieux, make their English language debuts beginning this May. The first release will be Sky Doll #1 (of 3), a timely socio-political thriller in which a young android must decide her destiny by challenging the very government—and faith—that has controlled her life.

"At a time when French comics need to reach new markets, I am very proud to bring the iconic heroes of the Soleil catalogue to the publishing adventure of Marvel in the USA. Leader of the American comic book entertainment, Marvel is a very powerful symbol of our medium built on innovation and entrepreneurship, two of my most treasured values", said Mourad Boudjellal, Founder and CEO of Soleil / MC Productions.

Soleil appeared on the comic scene in 1988 and quickly moved into publishing both classic comics by hot, young talent and series targeted towards younger audiences before buying great classics (Mandrake, Tarzan). Publishing science fiction, heroic fantasy, westerns and action comics from superstars such as Arleston, Tarquin, Mourier, Crisse, Swolfs and Ange, in addition to promising young talent, Soleil quickly established itself with a catalogue of powerful graphic novels.

Lanfeust, Soleil's flagship fantasy title, is today a standard reference series and the keystone of the company: over 5 million books sold since 1994.

A top comic book publishing company in France with thousands of comic books in its catalogue, Soleil is producing over 250 new books per year and keeps expanding in other worldwide markets. Over the years, the company has positioned itself as both a leader in the fantasy genre and a major force in the European comic book market.

Sky Doll Previews

There are several more preview pics that came in this press release that I wanted to bring you, but I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for about an hour now to get them formatted here and Blogger just hates them! And I tried hardcoding a table into a post a while back with disastrous results, so I'll make a second post with the rest of this artwork. Truly beautiful stuff that blows most of what's on the American newsstands out of the water!

© C Harris Lynn, 2008