Sadly, I don’t seem to have ever taken a picture of the logo for the “One Source” company I used to see with a variation on the Yin-Yang symbol without the dots. (There are so many companies with the name that I’m not having any luck looking online.)
![[New Spring #1 Cover]](https://hyperborea.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2005/08/New-Spring-Issue-1-196x300.jpg)
If so, it would be appropriate timing for New Spring (in the northern hemisphere, anyway). The Beat reports that Dynamite Entertainment is taking over “creative development, production, printing, marketing and sales for all titles handled by Dabel Brothers Publishing.” The earliest books are supposed to ship in April 2010.
There’s no specific word on New Spring or the ongoing Wheel of Time adaptation, but since New Spring #8 is reportedly “complete and ready for printing,” it seems likely to be part of that initial April release.
If the book does come out in April, it will have taken nearly five years to complete the eight-issue miniseries (the first issue shipped in August 2005). Dynamite will also be the third company logo to appear on the cover, after five issues with Red Eagle Entertainment and two with Dabel Brothers’ own label.
At this point I don’t care much about the Eye of the World comics, since they only published one issue to start with (two if you count the prologue), but I’d really like to see New Spring finished!
Comic Book Resources has more on the deal.
The long-delayed comic-book adaptation of New Spring may finally be coming to a close.
Since reading The Gathering Storm (which was very good), I’ve been saying that the previous book, Knife of Dreams, was the point where Robert Jordan finally got The Wheel of Time back on track. Thinking back, though, it was actually the expanded version of New Spring that got me excited about the series again after the dull, plodding Crossroads of Twilight.
Dabel Brothers started an 8-issue comic-book adaptation of the prequel back in 2005, published by Red Eagle Entertainment. It got off to a great start…until the studio and publisher started to feud, and the comics ceased publication entirely after #5 came out in early 2006.
Two years later (summer 2008), Dabel Brothers announced that they would start adapting the main Wheel of Time series, but at the time had no plans to complete New Spring. Finally, in April 2009, they announced that they’d be finishing the miniseries. #6 came out in May, as did the Eye of the World prologue, but #7 didn’t come out until August. It’s November now, with no sign of #8…or of Wheel of Time #2. Meanwhile, Bleeding Cool has been reporting financial problems — like not paying artists — and the Dabel Bros. website has gone offline.
It doesn’t sound promising…but there is some hope. I posted about several stalled comic miniseries at Speed Force, and Dabel Brothers’ Derek Ruiz* stopped in to comment:
NS #8 News coming soon. It’s complete and ready for printing. Once I have more to tell you on release date I’ll make my way back here. [emphasis added]
He didn’t mention Eye of the World, and I didn’t follow up. One thing at a time, after all!
As I understand it, Tor has the rights to publish the collected editions — and I suspect that’s where the main audience for this is going to be. If Dabel Brothers can ship the final issue of New Spring soon, Tor can have a hardcover in bookstores next year to tide fans over while they wait for Brandon Sanderson to finish Towers of Midnight.
*I don’t really have a way to verify it was him, but the email address does match a previous comment.
This weekend I finished reading the new Wheel of Time novel, The Gathering Storm. Now that I’ve read it, I can definitely say that Brandon Sanderson was a good choice to finish the series from Robert Jordan’s notes, and that splitting the final book into three was the right approach. It may be a doorstopper, but it would be difficult to cut more than a tiny amount without diminishing the impact of what remained.
No spoilers unless you don’t want to know which characters appear in the book. In which case, stop reading now. It focuses primarily on Rand, Egwene, and their respective entourages, though most of the other major characters make appearances. If I were to guess, the next book (Towers of Midnight) will probably focus mainly on Rand and Mat, and maybe Elayne. Katie reminded me that the title is a Seanchan reference, plus there’s another mission — well, quest, really — being built up involving a tower. (Not to mention the White Tower and Black Tower, of course!)
As in Knife of Dreams (and unlike Crossroads of Twilight), things happen in this book! There’s a growing sense of urgency throughout the novel, and everyone who can is pushing hard to have everything in place for the coming apocalypse. For some characters it’s a personal journey. For others it’s political. And for some, it’s simply geographical.
As far as meshing with the rest of the series goes, the only thing that stood out for me was that points of view would switch in the middle of a chapter more often than I expected. It’s not that Robert Jordan never did it, but I remember it being rare outside of the prologues. Brandon Sanderson is more likely to take what would have been two shorter, thematically linked chapters and combine them into one. Katie also noticed one spot early on that one character from Tarabon didn’t speak with the Taraboner dialect — but only the one instance, and one in which the phrasing would have been awkward. It still reads like a Wheel of Time book.
I wish Robert Jordan had been able to finish his epic himself, but it looks like we’re getting the next best thing.
A tech list is discussing EAGAIN errors, and I keep misreading it as EGEANIN.
