Who's Next?

Recently a pair of comic projects have moved from comic publishers to Random House. Craig Thompson's Habibi has gone from Top Shelf to the Pantheon imprint and the Flight anthology from Image to the Ballantine division. Whether these agreements will allow for the previous publishers to still sell to the direct market (as in the case of some Fantagraphics books) remains to be seen.

While a major publisher taking on graphic novels is not new, it makes me curious about how the trend will continue. Will we be seeing other indy creators like Alex Robinson, James Kochalka, or Joe Sacco following in the footsteps of Thompson, Clowes, and Pekar? Will creators who do more mainstream work such as Grant Morrison, Howard Chaykin, and Brian Azzarello be given similar deals?

Is there any limit to who could get a book deal? Jeph Loeb or Mark Millar, anyone? How about Chuck Austen? Hell, if Dan Brown can become a bestselling author, anythings possible.