Ardden Entertainment LLC has announced that comic book industry veteran Mike Grell has been named Ardden’s Editor-in-Chief replacing J.M. DeMatteis, who resigned in October.  Grell is perhaps best known for his creations Warlord and Jon Sable Freelance and for his run on DC’s Green Arrow. 

According to a press release from Ardden, Grell will oversee Ardden’s complete line, which will greatly expand in 2011.  The company’s flagship title, Flash Gordon, relaunches in January with its second arc, Invasion of the Red Sword.  Also in 2011, Ardden plans to relaunch a series of titles from the shortlived 1970s company Atlas Comics in conjunction with Jason Goodman, the grandson of Marvel (and Atlas) founder, Martin Goodman (see “Atlas Returns”). 

There is a certain irony in the fact that Grell will be overseeing the Atlas titles, since as a young artist back in the 1970s he pitched a project that would later become Warlord to the newly formed Atlas/Seaboard only to have it rejected.

Ardden Entertainment was launched in 2008 by former Miramax/Dimension Films executive Brendan Deneen and Richard Emms.