At the turn of the millenia, tech entrepreneur Marc Alessi had laid out the groundwork for a company that might one day equal Marvel or DC in terms of content and quality. He sold his tech corporation in 1999 to Perot Enterprises for stock, which he would use to finance a new company – one with a business model unheard of in the industry until that time.

Where Marvel and DC Comics employed primarily free-lancers, CrossGen would hire many salaried, full-time staff to produce their books and manage editorial responsibilities.

The first few years of the company saw many accomplishments for the CrossGen team. Spearheaded by Barbara Kesel, Mark Waid and Ron Marz, the company had many early successes. Numerous titles and talent were nominated for several Harvey awards. Distribution seemed to go well, and CrossGen was one of the pioneers in making comic books available online through a subscription service. 

Beautiful artwork and solid stories marked CrossGen’s days in the comic industry. Now, the properties are owned by Marvel/Disney.

The internet is ripe with rumors of what caused CrossGen’s bankruptcy and untimely demise in the comics world in 2004. They had many titles, some which ran dozens of issues before things fell apart. Some speculate that CrossGen was designed to be a loss-leader, and the original intention may have been to sell off the characters’ movie rights and recoup money that way. Some rumors persist that people weren’t getting paid. Other sites speculate that returns from major companies like Borders, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million put the company in a massive hole.

Regardless of the reason, the death of CrossGen was a loss to the industry, and many fans (myself included) still wonder when we’ll see closure to many of the story lines they produced.

Which CrossGen titles did you read? Are there any particular storylines you’d like to see concluded?

As always, I am – Wally (AKA Paint Monk)