In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover how close we came to seeing an Ice-T graphic novel from DC.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and forty-fifth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first legend in this installment.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

DC almost released an Ice-T graphic novel.

STATUS:

True

One of the major effects of the change to a direct market sales model in the comic book industry was that it suddenly became very possible for a small publisher to turn a profit on an independent comic book, since you only had to print to order and that there were now direct market comic book stores where you could sell your product to an auidence specifically looking to buy comics. This was very similar to how indie comix in the late 1960s/early 1970s exploded in popularity, because there were head shops (stores that sold paraphernalia for marijuana use) that worked as the equivalent of direct market comic book stores as the head shops purchased the comic books directly. Head shops were fascinating because obviously, there was not a big enough market to support independent comix-only stores themselves, but head shops were thriving, and since they needed things to sell (there are only so many pipes to sell), indie comix hooked on to that market, and so similarly, when the direct market mainstream comic book stores started booming in the 1980s, the indie comix (which had lost the head shop market when the Supreme Court ruled that cities could determine whether head shops were allowed on a local basis, and most said, "nope" to head shops) then had a second wave when they latched on to the comic book store market. However, this was even bigger than the earlier boom, since you didn't have to work with head shops directly, you could deal with distributors who then dealt with ALL of the direct market comic book stores in the country. So it was much easier for a small publisher to succeed (still not EASY, of course, but much easiER).

DC and Marvel saw this new indepedent boom and tried to answer this possible new audience. DC's response was forming Piranha Press in 1989.

RELATED:Was Punisher Created to Spin Off Into Marvel's Non-Comics Code Magazines?

DC editor Mark Nevelow was the founder of the offshoot imprint of DC that specialized in indie comics. As he explained to the Los Angeles Times in 1990, “We’re taking off from what people traditionally expect from comic books. We’re trying to get people who don’t buy comic books to buy comic books.”

However, by 1991, Nevelow had moved on and DC tried new ideas with Piranha Press, with Andy Helfer pushing a line of comics based on musicians called Piranha Music. It launched with a Prince comic book (cover by Brian Bolland!)...

prince-alter-ego

RELATED: Did the Invisible Woman Almost Become a Private Eye in the 1970s?

Helfer himself worked out a deal with Ice-T to do a Piranha Music graphic novel starring the rapper (who, like Prince, was putting out music through DC's parent company, Warner Bros.). The great Trevor Von Eeden and Randy Elliott did the art for the series, with the iconic Mike Zeck doing the cover...

ice-t-0

Here are some sample pages...

ice-t-1

However, at the same time, Ice-T released a new song called "Cop Killer" and...well...

ice-t-2

Warners quickly backed off the whole promotion of the album and the graphic novel never came out.

It's too bad, as it looked quite cool.

CHECK OUT A TV LEGENDS REVEALED!

In the latest TV Legends Revealed - Discover what established Star Trek: Voyager character Tom Paris was based on, amusingly played by the same actor who ended up playing Tom Paris!

MORE LEGENDS STUFF!

OK, that's it for this installment!

Thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo, which I don't even actually anymore, but I used it for years and you still see it when you see my old columns, so it's fair enough to still thank him, I think.

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well! Also, if you have a correction or a comment, feel free to also e-mail me. CBR sometimes e-mails me with e-mails they get about CBLR and that's fair enough, but the quickest way to get a correction through is to just e-mail me directly, honest. I don't mind corrections. Always best to get things accurate!

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