The most widely distributed and most printed Justice League comic this year isn’t in your local comics shop, not unless they’ve got a groceries isle. General Mills (owners of such brands as Lucky Charms and Cheerios) has put 12 million copies of a JLA comic into their breakfast cereals as part of a promotional campaign – it can’t be any coincidence that DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Jones is something of a break cereal aficionado.

The announcement of the cereal books was covered in the New York Times:

Now, Big G is upping the ante with a partnership with the DC Comics division of Time Warner. Big G is offering custom editions of DC’s Justice League comic books inside, as they like to say, “specially-marked boxes” of cereals that include Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Trix.

DC is printing 12 million copies of the comic books. There are four books in the free-with-purchase cereal series, bearing titles like “Unstoppable Forces” and “Breakout!”

[...]

The comic books inside the cereal boxes are smaller than the comic books sold in stores. The Big G editions are 5 inches by 7 inches, compared with a standard comic’s dimensions of 6 5/8 inches by 10 3/16 inches.

The custom comic books run 24 pages and carry no advertising except for a mention on Page 2 that they are “brought to you by Big G cereals.”

The first chapter of each story is included in the cereal box and is concluded online at  biggcerealheroes.com

The Park Record (or Park City, Utah) spoke with local comics artist Doug Wagner about his script for one of the four different issues:

“GM called me five months ago and said they wanted me to write a story that featured the Flash and they needed it in a week,” Wagner told The Park Record. “They didn’t tell me what they wanted the Flash to do. They just told me they needed a 24-page story that is appropriate for all ages.”

Apparently, the company was happy with Wagner’s story because they printed 5.3 million copies to be stuffed into boxes of Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa Puffs, to name a few.

“My wife has been running around trying to find my issue,” he said with a laugh.

Wagner enjoyed the project.

“When you’re doing anything that is licensed, there are always a lot of editors who are touching the story, but they’re all trying to do what’s best and what will fit the need for the campaign,” he said. “It was still really fun.”

Interestingly, given the current renovations in DC’s mainline, the characters that appear in the GM comics are the classical versions of the Leaguers with their original costumes.

[via: Bleeding Cool]