Chris Roberson, former writer of iZombie, well-documented Before Watchmen opponent and the controversial author of IDW’s Memorial (which ends today), announced today that he’ll hold a press conference on July 2 to reveal his next big project just prior to next month’s San Diego Comic-Con International.While the author didn’t make exactly clear what it is that he’s announcing, it included a number of promotional images, all bearing the name and logo “Monkeybrain Comics.” While Monkeybrain, Inc. has been a name associated with Roberson for quite some time, the Monkeybrain Comics variation really only came into being recently, with a recently-launched Tumblr blog and Twitter account. The first tweet from the Twitter account is dated April 6, two weeks before Roberson announced he was done working for DC Comics and DC, in response, let him go from his final assignment. A website for the company includes only a countdown leading up to the time and date of the press conference.Today’s e-mail touting the press conference invitation included a number of graphics by a number of artists, including Doctor Who‘s Matthew Dow Smith. Smith, in turn, has been teasing his own “secret project” on his blog, so one has to wonder whether the two are related. It’s also interesting to note that Roberson has been talking at length on Twitter and Facebook about a character he co-created with his young daughter Georgia for an upcoming comics project; could one of the first characters from a presumptive Monkeybrain Comics label be co-created with a grade schooler?Assuming that Monkeybrain Comics is, in fact, a new publishing venture and that the artists responsible for these teasers are all directly involved with its founding, would it be a stand-alone company or an imprint, perhaps at IDW where Roberson and Smith both have good relationships?The founding of Image Comics–still going strong 20 years later and reportedly the publisher of 2012’s likely candidate for best-selling comic book of the year–came as a response to the creator’s rights movement of the ’80s. That, in turn, was tied to some degree over the outrage in the creative community over Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ initial treatment over Watchmen. Certainly to have a second creator-owned publisher springing from the outrage over Before Watchmen all these years later would be an interesting parallel.
