It looks like Ash Avildsen and his Sumerian Records and Films companies want to get into the comic book and video game business. How else do you explain them buying Behemoth?
A Behemoth Acquisition!
Deadline has just reported that Sumerian Records and Films (owned and founded by Ash Avildsen) has just acquired Behemoth. What is Behemoth, you might ask? Well, they’re a US-based company founded by Nathan Yocum and Ryan Swanson that publishes comic books, graphic novels, and they even started publishing video game a short while ago. Over 50,000 titles in total, actually. Apparently, Ash Avildsen wants those titles. Avildsen’s exact words are as follows:
“Nathan and Ryan have built Behemoth so quickly and independently with such a great original IP selection of characters, worlds and story. It was an easy decision to team up with these very talented young mavericks when the opportunity arose. They have good taste! Having a diligent, proven team in comics, graphic novels and gaming is paramount to Sumerian as we continue our passion for story-telling across all audio and visual spectrums. We will always be discovering, creating or developing IP into books, episodic series, feature films, animation and beyond.”
Behemoth: Details
Behemoth is basically an entertainment company. Specifically: a publishing company. Thus far, they have published comic books, graphic novels, and a few video games. Their best-selling original comic book series are You Promised Me Darkness and Until My Knuckles Bleed. Both of which sound like great titles for horror comics.
Behemoth however mostly does licensed comic book series based on existing franchises. These franchises seem to be almost entirely independent series. Yes, they did a comic book series based on Watch Dogs Legions. However, their tastes seem to run more to oddities like MKFZ, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and Turbo Kid.
And as I mentioned before, Behemoth has just started branching out into publishing video games. Thus far, they only have 2 on their list: Blank Frame and Meat Saw. Both of them are horror games sold solely on Steam, although the latter is debatable since it’s free. They do have an entire catalog of games they will release in 2022 though, including Sirenhead: Southpoint and Postal 4: No Regrets. Maybe now that they have Ash Avildsen’s money behind them, they can actually release those games sooner? We shall see.
Source: Deadline, Steam, Steam