This just received, a press release from my good friend Brian Saner-Lamken, about the new comics magazine he's launching.  I, for one, can hardly wait.

June 14th, 1998

COMICOLOGY is coming

A new kind of comics magazine is debuting this fall. Published twice a year in a durable, squarebound format, COMICOLOGY is an ongoing library of feature-and interview-oriented reference volumes from Harbor Press that will straddle the line between book and magazine just as it bypasses the often artificialboundaries between mainstream and alternative. The first issue of COMICOLOGY is set to debut this November at the Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus and reach comic-book stores nationwide in early December.
     "It's subtitled THE 'KINGDOM COME' COMPANION," editor Brian Saner-Lamken told your Amused correspondent, "and -- in addition to coverage of DC Comics' upcoming KINGDOM event -- will offer the most comprehensive annotations to Mark Waid and Alex Ross' landmark KINGDOM COME graphic novel ever printed."
    Also included are a complete, illustrated KINGDOM COME character directory, excerpts from Ross' original proposal for what eventually became KINGDOM COME, and pages of never-before-published artwork from Ross' sketchbook featuring characters and character designs that never made it into the finished product.
     "The icing on the cake," according to Saner-Lamken, "is an original Alex Ross cover reimagining KINGDOM COME's main characters in legendary artist Alex Toth's trademark SUPER FRIENDS style. It's absolutely gorgeous."
     You can get a glimpse of it here at Amused in Review or see it for yourself on the cover of the Wizard Wizard convention booklet this coming weekend in Chicago.
     Saner-Lamken is a longtime cartoonist and comics-industry journalist whose first book, PRO-MOTION: HOW TODAY'S CREATORS BROKE INTO COMICS... AND THEIR ADVICE TO YOU! is fast approaching its third anniversary. He noted that he has plans to get back to work on a combination update and sequel to that book as soon as COMICOLOGY gets off the ground, and promised that "this time the book will be bigger and the title will be shorter."
    As with the first go-round, Saner-Lamken will be essentially self-publishing.
   "That's the case with COMICOLOGY as well," he said. "My wife and I can both testify to the headaches of the process, but the truth is that -- even setting the practical benefits of creative control aside -- putting together something yourself from start to finish is just a lot of fun, and that's the name of the game."
    Saner-Lamken recently incoporated his editorial and graphic-design business under the name Harbor Studios, and plans to release COMICOLOGY and all future projects as Harbor Press.
   "I'm an East Coast seashore boy," he explained, "and if I can't look out my window and see the ocean every day then at the very least I want it on my letterhead."

KINGDOM COME is a trademark of DC Comics.
COMICOLOGY, Harbor Studios, and Harbor Press are trademarks of Harbor Studios Inc.
###
Brian Saner Lamken
Harbor Press (A Division of Harbor Studios Inc.)
US Mail: 61 Llanfair Rd. #C3, Ardmore PA 19003
Phone: 610/645-4369 * Fax: 610/645-5346
Internet: blamken@compuserve.com

A black and white version of the front cover to Comicology #1 (The cast of Kingdom Come, Super-Friends style by Aex Ross).  I've seen the color original, and this doesn't begin to do it justice, but it's pretty neat anyway.