Official Press Release

IDW Publishing announces new title Baja at Comic-Con 2011

Comics giant will be giving away a free ashcan; creator Ben Wagner will be on hand to discuss his graphic novel and tease about other upcoming projects

San Diego, CA (20 July 2011) — In tandem with Comic-Con International: San Diego 2011, IDW Publishing announces its newest title, Baja, written by acclaimed transmedia artist Ben Wagner and illustrated by Nathan St John. Attendees can pick up a free ashcan of Baja while supplies last at the IDW booth (#2643) and get a sneak preview of the October release. Visit Baja online at http://www.getawaytobaja.com. An award-winning artist across many mediums, Wagner will be in San Diego throughout the convention for signings, meet-and-greets and exclusive interviews about his anticipated projects, including the film adaptation of Baja, the graphic novels Hot Tongues From Hell and Glory Days, and the just-completed film What Remains, which Wagner directed and is being scored by Grammy®-nominated rocker Joshua Bradford (Revolting Cocks, Ministry, The Great AmeriCon).

Baja recounts the story of a young couple whose road trip down the remote Baja Peninsula is interrupted by an ominous stranger whose fate is closely tied to their own. The film version of Baja was developed in Film Independent’s selective screenwriters and producers labs and in 2010 made it to the quarterfinals for the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.
While becoming an accomplished storyteller working in film, television, graphic novels and the interactive online experiences he calls “transmedia art”, Wagner studied film at Northwestern University and received an MBA from UCLA Anderson business school. In his most recent film 6:00, a cop confronts a gang who done her wrong in a non-stop fight through busted alleys, abandoned houses, and in a speeding car—all in one shot. This visually arresting and technical work epitomizes Wagner’s outlook on storytelling: “Good stories should challenge, captivate, and entertain.” The film won Best Action Sequence Short 2010 at Action on Film. Wagner also wrote and directed the feature film Southbounders, which premiered in competition at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival and successfully screened at festivals worldwide.

A second upcoming graphic novel Glory Days—written by Wagner and illustrated by Jake Allen (Brownsville, NBM)—draws on raw emotions to tell a story set in a small town in Maine where you can’t escape the transgressions of your past. In addition, Matthew Bradford (Night and Fog) and Wagner partnered to create Hot Tongues From Hell, a genre-bending comedic tribute to the sex comedies and splatter horror movies of the 80s and 90s, which will see publication soon.

Wagner (as director) and Bradford (as screenwriter) also collaborated on What Remains, a psychological horror film about a man and woman who have survived six months after a mysterious outbreak by isolating themselves in a remote cabin. Starved for resources, they must confront the horrors that threaten them from outside—and from within. The film just wrapped production and aims to be in theaters early next year. A teaser trailer for the film can be seen at
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150341893318313&oid=227059410649666.

Wagner’s umbrella company is 3:41am.com, a hub for games, films, shorts, and graphic novels that weave through stories created by Wagner and his collaborators. It’s an interactive noir, thriller, crime and horror experience interweaving online, on print, and on screen. Teasers for all of Wagner’s projects can be experienced on the site.

Baja can be preordered now on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Baja-Ben-Wagner/dp/1613770200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308237483&sr=8-1. IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE; Paramount’s Star Trek; HBO’s True Blood; the BBC’s DOCTOR WHO; Toho’s Godzilla; Sony’s Ghostbusters; and comics and trade collections based on novels by worldwide bestselling author James Patterson. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints; Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio; and is the print publisher for EA Comics. IDW’s original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture.