Publication History
The first six issues of The Boys were published by Wildstorm, starting in 2006. On January 24, 2007, the series was abruptly canceled with issue 6. Ennis later explained that this was because DC Comics (of whom Wildstorm was an imprint before it was disbanded) were uneasy with the anti-superhero tone of the work. The planned collection of said issues was also canceled. Robertson said that "DC is being good about reverting our rights so we can find a new publisher and we're in the process of doing that now". Ennis then released a statement some other publishers had expressed interest, and that issue 7 and a trade of the first six issues would be available. While Darick Robertson is on exclusive contract to DC, he has been given special dispensation to continue working on The Boys. In February 2007 the series was picked up by Dynamite Entertainment and it resumed in May. A collected edition of the first six issues was also published by Dynamite, with a foreword by Simon Pegg.
In February 2009 Dynamite announced a spin-off mini-series Herogasm, with art from John McCrea, who Ennis has worked with numerous times before, and Keith Burns, a friend of McCrea's who has said "Keith's strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa." The series is The Boys version of the big 'event' storylines but, according to Ennis "while we're having a pop at the notion of mass crossovers within a shared universe, we're not picking on 'Crisis' or 'Secret Wars' or 'Countdown' or whatever in particular." The idea for the mini-series came about because the first part of the story does not involve the team and focuses on the superheroes, but will have an impact on the main series:
| “ | Our heroes' minor role in the story gradually alters its dynamic, until something happens in #4 that sends things off on a completely unexpected tangent. After that, life gets serious fast, and by the end you'll have witnessed events that will change things in the Boys' world for good. We'll start to pick up on the effects of that with #31 of the regular title. | ” |
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