For Immediate Release

Kovalic Takes on the Games Business
In ‘ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games’

Award-winning Editorial Cartoonist bites the hand that fed him!

MADISON, WI - Harvey Award-nominated cartoonist John Kovalic has become a regular contributor to the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games. He will create an editorial cartoon for each quarterly issue, commenting on game industry issues of the day.

Kovalic’s first cartoon for ICv2 will appear in ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games #11, which shipped to distributors June 1. June 1 was also the day Kovalic was nominated for two prestigious Harvey Awards, for “Best Cartoonist,” and “Special Award for Humor in Comics.”

ICv2 Publisher Milton Griepp was ecstatic about the alignment of events. “This puts an exclamation point to the admiration we’ve always felt for John’s work, and confirms our desire to have him work with us,” Griepp said. “Plus his deep understanding of the games business gives him an insight that makes his work a great fit for our retailer audience.”

Kovalic was excited about the opportunity to comment on the games business. “It’s great to bring my editorial work to the field I love,” he said. “I’ve been working in this industry since 1982, when I was a clerk in London’s Forbidden Planet. Darn right I’ve got a thing or two to say about it.”

“I’ve worked the retail side, the manufacturing side, and of course, the fanboy side,” he added. “Fortunately, I’ve even freelanced for some distributors, so I think I’ve got all the bases covered.”

The ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games #11 will start reaching retailers soon. Issue #12 will be distributed at Gen Con, in addition to its regular distribution through distributors and mailings. And issue #13 will ship to distributors November 6th.

John Kovalic’s editorial cartoons have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and he continues to freelance for his hometown Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI). His multi-award winning comic book, “Dork Tower,” has sold nearly 500,000 copies, and is approaching the 10th anniversary of the comic strip's first appearance in SHADIS magazine. USA Today called Kovalic a “Hot Pick,” and he’s a co-owner and co-founder of Out of the Box Games ("Apples to Apples," "Blink," "Abridged"), as well as a best-selling and prolific freelance game illustrator ("Munchkin," "Chez Geek," "Dungeonville," "Mag*Blast.")

In John's free time, he searches for free time.

ICv2 publishes ICv2.com and three magazine titles, ICv2 Retailers Guides to Games, ICv2 Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga, and ICv2 Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels. The ICv2 Retailers Guides provide market analysis, bestseller lists, news and buying tips on upcoming releases and feature articles on the business issues of the day. ICv2.com provides daily news and information to help pop culture retailers keep up with the ferocious pace of change in a ten billion dollar industry. ICv2 has become the authoritative source on business issues in the categories it covers, quoted by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Business Week, Fortune, and many other respected publications.



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Other news:

Just received word from the great folks at Fantasy Flight Games that Mag*Blast has gone to press!

I'm really looking forward to getting my own copy of this. It was a ton of fun to draw, and I was given an enormous amount of leeway in creating the new races and starships.





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