Comics Electricity at AiT/PlanetLar

Larry Young originally named his small-press graphic novel company PlanetLar, after a nickname he'd had in college; then he prefaced it with the initials of his first major book, Astronauts in Trouble, so it would be listed under A instead of P in distribution catalogues. Four and a half years later, AiT/PlanetLar has 42 titles in print, with another one coming almost every month. Now Astronauts in Trouble has been optioned as a TV show by Kickstart Productions, and there's media interest in the company's titles Channel Zero and Last of the Independents.

And Hollywood is already sniffing around at least one AiT/PlanetLar title that hasn't even been published yet: Codeflesh by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard, due in November, about a bail bondsman and skip tracer for supervillains. That will be followed in December by Stuart Moore and Lucifer artist Ryan Kelly's Giant Robot Warriors, which Young describes as "a sociopolitical satire about the Middle East peace process." The company plans for the long term, giving its star creators the same month each year for their titles: every January is Brian Wood month, and next July, Matt Fraction and Kieron Dwyer are following up 2003's successful Last of the Independents with the twisted Western Big Hat. Other upcoming titles include a second collection of Tom Beland's True Story, Swear to God comic strips, and Young and Brandon McKinney's comics-business allegory Planet of the Capes.

AiT/PlanetLar is distributed by Diamond to bookstores, where its bestselling titles are "far and away" Mike Brennan's two-volume kids' graphic novel Electric Girl, Young says. "I have to work very hard to sell 30 copies a month of Electric Girl in the comics trade, and we sell about 500 a week in the book trade. It's the librarians—YA librarians love it, and they all talk to each other." The title is up to about 10,000 copies on each volume and, says Young, "Mike just had a little baby girl, so he's committed to doing more Electric Girls for her."

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