FUTURE COMICS

In 1998, American comic book artist Bob Layton, coming off after a short retirement from the comic book industry, returned to the business of creating comics by teaming-up veteran creators Dick Giordano and David Michelinie to form 'Future Comics'. The four titles Future produced were ''Freemind'', ''Metallix'', ''Deathmask'', and ''Peacekeeper'' (unfortunately no issues of ''Peacekeeper'' were ever published when the company closed down).
The stated aim was to produce titles that would be "attractive to a mass market readership... stuff that could be read by the 'Average Joe'" [1]. It also had a stated aim of revolutionizing comics distribution by directly selling to readers and retailers alike via the Internet, rather than using distributors like Diamond; this method was heavily promoted.
After publishing some issues in their first year, Future Comics went on a hiatus. In 2003, it announced it would be ending publication of monthly titles and would instead publish original trade paperbacks (first reprinting the original issues). It also began selling Future titles through Diamond Distribution.
Layton was eventually forced to close Future Comics after only two and a half years in business in 2004. Layton stated afterwards [2] that this was caused by the switch to distributing through Diamond (accusing Diamond of deliberately trying to harm the company) and mismanagement by Future's financial department. He also blamed direct-market retailers for low sales, claiming Future Comics was trying to offer what retailers said they wanted but "the retailers still didn’t order sufficient quantities to keep us going".

Contents

Bibliography

Bibliography

★ ''Freemind'' #0-7

★ ''Freemind'' bound volume trade paperback (reprints issues #0-3)

★ ''Metallix'' #0-6

★ ''Deathmask'' #1-3

★ ''Peacekeeper'' (unpublished)