New York, NY (PRWEB) August 19, 2007
Valiant Entertainment, owner and manager of the popular Valiant Comics library of characters across all media, today unveiled the new Valiant logo. Designed by world famous corporate identity consultant Henry Steiner, the logo will used in all media and will make its debut on the upcoming Harbinger: The Beginning hardcover featuring a new story by comics legend Jim Shooter.
Henry Steiner established one of the leading international brand consultancies Steiner & Co. in Hong Kong in 1964. He has designed for some of the world's most powerful and enduring brands, such as IBM, Hyatt Regency, Dow Jones, HSBC, Unilever (makers of such food and personal care products as Ragú and Dove), and had the privilege of designing the currency in Hong Kong. Born in Vienna and raised in New York, Steiner was educated at the Sorbonne and at Yale, where he studied with Paul Rand.
"We are honored to be working with design legend Henry Steiner on creating an updated and versatile version of the classic Valiant logo suitable for launching Valiant characters and stories in all media," said Jason Kothari, CEO of Valiant Entertainment.
Henry Steiner added, "My goal was repositioning the logo while preserving its brand equity. The new mark is both classic and dynamic, vivid and memorable. This was a big challenge and I imagined Valiant's many devoted fans looking over my shoulder; I believe they'll appreciate its timeless integrity and distinctive presence. It's now one of my favorite creations."
In 1988, former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter, former manager of the Allman Brothers Band Steve Massarsky, and a group of investors attempted to purchase Marvel Enterprises. Ultimately, they instead formed Voyager Communications, Inc. in 1989 with financing from Triumph Capital, and focused on creating original superhero comic books under the Valiant Comics imprint. With a passionate team of veteran creators and new creators working side-by-side, Valiant launched a new line of superhero comics with more realistic characters, tighter continuity, and a greater focus on quality storytelling than any of its competitors.
The popularity of Valiant characters grew at an unprecedented rate and Valiant became the third largest comic book publisher after Marvel Comics (Spider-man, X-Men, Fantastic Four) and DC Comics (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) selling a massive 80 million comic books. In 1993, Valiant gained a market share almost identical to DC Comics, a company whose characters were created 50 years earlier, and was named Publisher of the Year ahead of Marvel and DC.
In 1994, Triumph Capital decided to exit their investment in Valiant and hired investment bank Allen & Co. to sell the company. Allen & Co. originally looked to sell Valiant for $250 million to Paramount Pictures, but the comic book market sharply contracted. Valiant was eventually sold for $65 million during the industry downturn to video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment (NASDAQ: AKLM), the company responsible for the Mortal Kombat and the NBA Jam video game franchises.
Acclaim focused on developing action adventure video games based on Valiant characters and targeted a younger demographic than comic book readers. From 1996 to 2002, Acclaim created a number of successful multi-platform released Valiant video games, such as the Shadowman franchise and Iron Man X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal (which featured Valiant's X-O Manowar alongside Marvel's Iron Man), with sales totaling over 8 million units.
After significant losses on their licensed sports video games, Acclaim Entertainment filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2003. In 2005, the newly formed Valiant Entertainment, led by a group of investment professionals and media executives from Viacom and Acclaim, acquired all the media rights to the Valiant Comics library of characters from Acclaim Entertainment's estate. Valiant Entertainment announced they will develop and utilize the Valiant characters across all media, creating unprecedented excitement among Valiant's large readership.
The new Valiant logo by design legend Henry Steiner will debut on Valiant Entertainment's upcoming Harbinger: The Beginning hardcover collection arriving in stores on August 29th, 2007 and will brand all future Valiant Entertainment projects in all media.
About Valiant Entertainment:
Valiant Entertainment, Inc. is a character-based entertainment company that owns and manages some of the most popular comic characters ever created across all media, including feature films, television, video games, new media, publishing, and consumer products. Since its creation in 1990, Valiant has sold over 80 million comic books, 8 million video games, and became one of the three leading comic character-based companies globally. In addition, the "Valiant characters are often called the most important characters created since the Marvel revolution of the 1960s." (Sequart, 2006) VALIANT™ characters include X-O Manowar®, Bloodshot®, Harbinger™, Eternal Warrior™, Doctor Mirage™, Ninjak™, Shadowman®, Rai™, and Quantum & Woody™, among many others. Visit ValiantEntertainment.com for more information.
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