Comic News: IDW Brings Bat Boy to Comics

New partnership with Weekly World News kicks off in January


For years, Bat Boy and the other bizarre denizens of the Weekly World News delighted millions in the long-running tabloid newspaper. Now, those same creatures are headed to full-color comic books for the first time. IDW Publishing is proud to announce a new partnership with the Weekly World News to bring those characters to comics, in the form of a new 4-issue miniseries kicking off in January 2010.

In the first-ever Weekly World News miniseries, “The Irredemption of Ed Anger,” the beloved Bat Boy is joined by the far-right-wing columnist Ed Anger (“pave the Rain Forest!”), PhD Ape (simian psychologist to the stars), UFO Alien (presidential-predicting pundit from the stars), Manigator (half-man/half-gator reptilian good ol’ boy), Lemmie (the Lake Erie Monster); Chaos Cloud (unpredictable weather front with the face of François Mitterand); and even Freeze Dried Baby (surly 95-year-old-looking baby) in an adventure that divides and unites, the group.

The series will be written by IDW’s Publisher/Editor-in-Chief and Eisner-nominated writer Chris Ryall (Groom Lake, Zombies vs Robots), with art by Alan Robinson (Terminator Salvation Movie Prequel). Robinson will also be contributing covers that emulate classic Weekly World News covers, and artist Joe Corroney (Star Trek) will be providing special variant covers for the series. Each issue will also contain classic newspaper stories featuring these characters as back-up material, too.

The Weekly World News, which carried the tagline “The World’s Only Reliable News” and spent years living up to that description, launched in 1979 as a supermarket tabloid focused on sensational stories.

“This tells you something about my dreams when I say that this really is a dream project for me,” said Chris Ryall. “I’ve followed Bat Boy’s exploits for over a decade, so it’s just great to be a part of the effort to expose him to an all-new audience and do monthly Weekly comics. WWN’s other characters make it that much better in terms of writing and in terms of offering up bizarre imagery for readers, too. ”

“The Chaos Cloud is scheduled to destroy Earth in 2014, so we figured if we were going to do comics, we should better hurry up and get with IDW,” said Neil McGinness, Weekly World News CEO. “IDW makes for a great partner as they have had terrific success with leading entertainment brands. Plus, we have admired Chris Ryall's work on Groom Lake and are very much looking forward to working together to bring the Weekly World News brand and all of our characters to life in comic book form.”

Weekly World News #1 (of 4), a 32-page, $3.99 comic book, debuts in January 2010.