Boom! Studios' line of comics based on licensed Games Workshop intellectual property, its bestselling titles, is expanding beyond the two Warhammer universes (40k and Fantasy) with a Blood Bowl series launching in April.  The company is also getting cross-promotional benefit for its GW titles from a comic pack-in for the Warhammer MMORPG, launching in Q2. 

The Blood Bowl series, scripted by bestselling fantasy author Matt Forbeck, will be based on the Games Workshop fantasy football parody game.  Blood Bowl:  Killer Contract, like most other Boom! GW titles, will be a five-issue miniseries, which will then be collected into a 128-page trade paperback.

Boom! will also have the opportunity to let buyers of the new MMORPG based on GW's Warhammer Fantasy universe know about the comic line via a comic pack-in that will be included free with game packages for the new Warhammer Online:  Age of Reckoning MMORPG launch expected late second quarter.

Blood Bowl is bracketed by the launch of two other Boom! GW titles:  Warhammer:  Condemned by Fire, which launches in March; and Warhammer 40,000:  Exterminatus, which kicks off in May.    

The #1s for the line all have A, B, and C covers, with the C cover an incentive on a 1 in 10 ratio.  All of the Warhammer books have been written by Warhammer novelist Dan Abnett and comics veteran Ian Edginton. 

Three previous Boom! GW miniseries are at various stages in their publishing cycle, which consists of a miniseries release followed by collection in a trade paperback, a limited edition hardcover release, plus a very limited signed and number and even more limited signed and lettered hardcover editions.

Warhammer 40,000:  Damnation Crusade, a six-shot, was collected into a trade paperback.  The limited hardcover sold out, and 100 signed and numbered and 26 signed an lettered copies are about to be made available. 

Warhammer:  Forge of War wraps this week with #5, and will be collected soon.  Warhammer:  Blood and Thunder is a four-shot, which will be collected into a 128-page trade paperback with Warhammer #0, the recently published 'pilot' issue one-shot. 

The comics are not sold in Games Workshop company stores, which provides an opportunity for independent retailers.  Book retailers can get the trade paperbacks through Perseus.