Thu Sep 3, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman

Comics (Company) Buyer's Guide

Let's review the scorecard:

• Disney just picked up Marvel, and already owns the assets from CrossGen.
• AOL Time Warner, through Warner Bros., owns DC Comics and subsidiary imprints Wildstorm, Vertigo, and CMX; and has a distribution and publishing arrangement with Archie for some characters.
• IDW is 50% owned by Starz.
• Dark Horse has a first look deal with NBC/Universal.

Who's left on the table?

On the movie studio side: Viacom/Paramount, Fox/NewsCorp, and Sony/Columbia. MGM and United Artists are a bit small to go shopping for their own comics company, although they could set up first look deals.

On the comics side: BOOM! must be looking very tempting. Dark Horse could still be bought. Image-- who would you deal with? Top Cow, possibly. Dynamic Forces licenses stuff from movie studios, not the other way around. Avatar is mostly writiers who probably control their sub rights, so there's little to be gained in an acquisition. Who after that? Slave Labor? Archaia? Aspen? Archie? Radical? Top Shelf?

My guess for a sleeper acquistion? Oni probably looks tempting to somebody.

But that's just my take on it. What about you? What do you think the next big move is going to be?

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