Over the first three years of his emergence in comics, the multi-millionaire and CrossGen founder has become just as known for his jabs at the competition and polemical statements as he has for producing comics. And that’s just the way Alessi wants it.

But for a man who’s worked so hard to engage his competition in debates on subjects ranging from how best to break into the mainstream to getting the video game generation back into comic books, it seems strange that when asked what he’s most excited about at CrossGen, Alessi doesn’t talk about his new creator-owned imprint Code 6 or even the fact that George Pérez has a new book coming from the publisher in 2003—it’s a program to help kids read that excites CrossGen’s main man.

“Our education initiative is probably the thing I’m most personally excited about,” says Alessi from his Tampa office. “We’ve spent about the last six months developing curriculum for grammar schools, middle schools and high schools. We even hired five teachers, who have over a 100 years of combined experience teaching slow readers, attention deficit kids and foreign language students, to make sure we’re building activities and courses that won’t just get kids to read comics but that will help kids read period.”

According to Alessi, the program will be available to schools for a nominal fee through CD-ROMs and via the Internet, and will use CrossGen titles like Meridian, Sojourn and Ruse to help students learn to read or improve their reading skills.

But just because Alessi’s focused on helping kids doesn’t mean he’s lost any of his drive to dominate the comic book field and even move into Hollywood and video games. In fact, in its relatively short existence, CrossGen’s already scored some major cache in Tinseltown, where it has a number of film, television and video game properties set up.

“We have a great team that knows who to talk to and which doors to knock on,” boasts Alessi. “We’re crossing so many different genres; there’s no ‘superhero’ limit. And we create things that are female friendly and you don’t see many companies in our industry doing that.”

And when it comes to talking about the industry as a whole, Alessi doesn’t hold back. The publisher says the comic book industry’s designed to crush small upstart publishers like CrossGen and even points to the recent bankruptcy of Brian Pulido’s Chaos! Comics as an example. But according to Alessi, who made his fortune running a multi-million dollar software company, he’s got a plan to crack the glass ceiling he sees set by Marvel and DC.

“This industry is set up to make everyone fail except the Big Two,” says Alessi.

“[Smaller companies] fail because the current system doesn’t allow them entry. I think the big companies are destroying the business. I want to see comic books advance into the 21st century and if you’re making and delivering comics the same way you did in the 1960s, then somewhere along the line you missed 40 or 50 years.”

Alessi, who’s publicly tried to goad both Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada and Marvel President Bill Jemas into public debates, holds the House of Ideas up as a prime example of everything he thinks is wrong with comics today. But with Marvel’s success under Quesada and Jemas, can they really be what’s wrong with comics? According to Alessi, even if Marvel dominates the Top 25 books in the country, it doesn’t mean the publisher’s helping the industry.

“I commend DC on how they handle themselves,” says Alessi. “I think Marvel is not the House of Ideas but the House of Gimmicks. I think they want to pick your pocket. And I think comic books fans are catching on.”

Alessi has particular ire for Marvel’s recent U-Decide event, which saw Jemas, Quesada and Captain Marvel writer Peter David square off in a competition to see whose book could sell the most copies over the next six weeks. [see that story here]

“I think the outcome of Marvel’s U-Decide event will be very simple,” chuckles Alessi. “Fans will decide on CrossGen.”

One of the ways Alessi hopes to lure more fans to the CrossGen camp is with the company’s two new imprints, Code 6 and CG Entertainment. Both imprints allow creators lacking major financial clout to publish projects under the CrossGen umbrella while maintaining part ownership in their properties.

“There’s some great work out there that doesn’t map itself directly to the CrossGen Universe,” explains Alessi. “So we started the affiliate program to help the smaller publishers who were going out of business because they didn’t have the personnel to develop the revenue sources to survive. Now we can give people like the Red Star crew or the Snake Plissken comic a chance and a fair deal. And it helps us expand our line of products. This helps everyone.”

According to Alessi, the affiliate program has already received over 90,000 applications and that only marks the beginning of CrossGen’s expansion. While still grooming colorists, pencilers and inkers in-house, Alessi admits he also wanted to begin grooming young writers for his company as well. But with a full schedule of books to script themselves, none of his current writers had time to take on a protégé—that’s a problem Alessi says he’d like to solve soon.

“I have every intention of bringing in a junior writer this year,” claims Alessi. “But I want to make sure we can do a good job of educating this person. We won’t just do it to do it. Like everything, we’ll do it right or not at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there and I don’t think any of it has the CrossGen name on it.”

And Alessi doesn’t plan putting out any garbage in the future, either. In fact, according to the publisher, in the next few years, CrossGen’s going to go from the little company that could to the giant that can.

“I think in one year we’ll be a solid number three,” admits Alessi, who wants to set realistic goals for his company. “But I hope in two years to be number one. I think DC has a strong business plan but I think the House of Ideas is tottering and crumbling. I think we’ll grow stronger each year and anyone who doesn’t believe that is in for a rude awakening.”