Black Mask Studios is bringing more comics-focused entertainment to YouTube. The media and publication company has launched its own official YouTube channel, and is working on releasing five new original web series in the near future.
Black Mask was founded in 2012 by filmmaker Matt Pizzolo, Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz, and horror writer Steve Niles. The three founders were inspired to start Black Mask by the “Occupy Comics” project, which aimed to raise money through comics to support the Occupy Wall Street movement. “It put a light on how difficult it was to get out comics with a message in them,” Pizzolo said to The New York Times.
And Black Mask’s upcoming web series certainly have unique messages in them. Liberator, for example, is a story about vigilante animal welfare activists, and Five Ghosts follows an adventurer who is possessed by five literary characters. The upcoming projects are either based on the company’s intellectual properties or those from other independent comic book publishers. Each series also has its own dedicated YouTube channel, with links included so visitors can purchase related merchandise or the original comics on which the moving picture programs are based.
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Pizzolo told The New York Times his company realized there was a place for comics on YouTube when his Godkiller series — about a boy’s quest in a post-nuclear wasteland to find a new heart for his near-death sister — raked in far more video views than he was expecting. “It got 100,000 views without my telling anyone about it,” he said. Pizzolo explained that Godkiller received “tens of thousands” more views once it debuted on Netflix, Hulu, and PlayStation.
“We all love the core comic book readership, but we have to make sure new people are discovering it,” Pizzolo added, noting that Black Mask hopes actual comic book sales rise due to the company’s new digital initiatives.
In addition to its digital projects and comics, Black Mask is also preparing for the release of its first animated movie Godkiller in summer 2015. Additionally, the media studio is developing three different television series. Sinatoro stems from comic book writer Grant Morrison and illustrator Vanesa Del Rey. The Disciples arrives from Niles and artist Christopher Mitten, and Ballistic comes from filmmaker and comic book writer Adam Egypt Mortimer and illustrator Darick Robertson.
No release date has been announced for more episodes of Black Mask Studios’ web series, or its film or TV shows.
