“Someone must always publish Planet of the Apes comic books.”
The Lawgiver, citing Obscure Ape Law

Boom! Studios has become the latest publisher to acquire the Planet Of The Apes license allowing them to monkey around with new comic book adventures.

Excellent!

From Farscape to The Muppet Show, Boom! has proved over and over that they know how to make good licensed comics so I’m looking forward to whatever comes out. They’re tying the new title into the continuity of the five classic films, so for Ape-nuts like me, I couldn’t be happier.

The new series will be written by Daryl Gregory and illustrated by Carlos Magno.

In an long-ago world, I was the editor on Malibu Comics’ versions of Planet Of The Apes and it was a very fun time for me - I turned a number of talented creators loose on the books and for the couple of years we had the license, they did everything from a traditional in-continuity take to dressing up the Apes in leather and putting them on motorcycles. Good times.

We even got to do a crossover project that teamed-up two Fox properties, Planet Of The Apes and Alien Nation.

What a new Planet Of The Apes series also means is that it looks like my pal Rich Handley is going to need to update his books.

And just what are those handy Handley books? If you’re at all interested in the history of Planet Of The Apes - from novels to movies to books to comics - Rich’s got two invaluable encyclopedias: Timeline Of The Planet Of The Apes and Lexicon Of The Planet Of The Apes. Worthy of all Ape-fans bookshelves.

[Artwork: Planet Of The Apes #1 from Boom! © 20th Century Fox]