Checker Book Publishing Group bought rights from Disney to reprint CrossGen collections. (CrossGen went out of business after a well-publicized bankruptcy.) Checker is also reprinting previously uncollected issues in book format.

At least, that’s what they’re publicizing. At that Newsarama thread, Mark Thompson, Checker’s publisher, is lightly interviewed about the line. Amongst their plans, he says:

The pre-orders have been good through Diamond, and we’ve good success getting picked up by the book trade. We’re a bit behind on the release schedule we originally announced.

Which I found interesting. Especially when a commenter expands on that problem by listing all the books Checker has solicited and pointing out that none of them have yet appeared. So “a bit behind” means “nothing has shipped.” Their website still lists release dates of earlier this year (link no longer available), although that didn’t happen.

So why the promo now? Could Checker be trying to increase interest and orders to make publishing worthwhile? More concrete information on actual release dates would be more helpful to readers and potential customers than talking about how great Disney is to work with. After all, fans of these properties have already been burnt once: CrossGen’s never-ending story style meant no endings to titles or resolutions for characters fans had invested in.

Many of these fans are hoping for conclusions to favorite titles, which would require more money than I suspect Checker or Disney is willing to invest. Continuations do exist in several cases, owned by the creators who weren’t paid for their work when CrossGen went under. I suspect seeing them formally printed is a futile hope, though.