Right on the heels of the announcement that CrossGen Comics would be published in China starting in August comes news of still more international growth. CrossGen recently signed a publishing deal with mg/publishing to publish their comics for the newsstand, comic shop, and bookstore markets in Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland. mg/publishing will publish the entire line of CrossGen's monthly comics as well as trade paperbacks and compendia editions.

mg/publishing launched their first CrossGen comics on May 29, 2002 at the International Comic-Salon in Erlangen, Germany - one of Germany's largest comics events of the year. They began with an event-exclusive release of Chronicles #1 and a give-away of the preview book CrossGenesis.

In June, mg/publishing began its newsstand, comic shop, and bookstore distribution by releasing Mystic #1, Sigil #1, Scion #1, and Meridian #1. A short time later, they introduced the compendia CrossGen Digest, which is the German equivalent of CrossGen's compendia Forge and Edge. mg/publishing will also provide CrossGen with German language translations for their comics on the Web.

Ralph Heinrich, Director of Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of mg/publishing is happy to be involved. "Since the CrossGen Universe is so complex, but still easy to receive, we expect a great success in Germany for the whole line," Heinrich stated. "We strongly feel that even in this hard time of the market, CrossGen is the only launch that has the potential to be a success, for the readers and for us as the publisher."

According to James Breitbeil, CrossGen's Director of Marketing and Distribution, the signing of this deal is helping the audience of comics grow.

"Since the beginning, CrossGen has strived to bring comics to as many readers as possible," Breitbeil said. "With this new agreement with mg/publishing, CrossGen titles are now available in at least 35 foreign countries and in 12 foreign languages. They are available worldwide via comic stores, bookstores, newsstands and through Comics on the Web. That's a substantial step towards achieving our goal."