Boom! Studios announced that it is launching Boom! Kids, a new imprint for its child-appropriate content.  The new line will kick off with The Incredibles:  Family Matters and The Muppet Show Comic Book, launching this week, and Cars:  The Rookie, launching next week.  The new imprint is supported by a Website separate from Boom’s main site, home to edgier titles such as Hexed or Shmobots. 

Four-issue story arcs, distributed as comic periodicals, will be collected into graphic novels for distribution in direct, bookstore, and mass outlets.  Other titles planned for the line include Pixar properties Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and Wall-E (see “Boom Studios Plans Pixar Line”). 

Kids titles were the fastest growing area of graphic novels last year, with 340 releases in the category in 2008, a 134% growth rate from the 145 releases in 2007, according to the ICv2 White Paper presented at the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference at New York Comic Con in February.  The only other graphic novel category with growth in title count in 2008 was American Genre (superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, etc.), which was up 6%.  The number of releases in all other graphic novel categories declined in 2008.