You remember Virgin Comics — a celebrity-driven line of periodicals and GNs by such folks as Nicolas Cage, Jenna Jameson, Dave Stewart, and so on? When Virgin broke up a while ago it morphed into Liquid Comics, a smaller company run by Virgin’s principals with similar development goals. Liquid was announced in Sept. 2008 and since then, news about the company seems to have evaporated…but they are still around and now announcing some projects.
Variety reports that Liquid has partnered with L&E Productions to launch Epic Cycle, a new line of graphic novels being developed for “multi-platforms.” L&E’s Eric Eisner, Liquid’s Sharad Devarajan, Gotham Chopra, and Suresh Seetharaman will come up with concepts and hire folks to turn them into graphic novels which can, presumably, be used as calling cards to get movies made.
The first three projects:
• H2O by Grant Calof, about “a global drought that creates a multicountry race to find water deep within the Earth.”
• A THOUSAND ARTS by Stuart Moore, “a kung fu adventure set in the Alaskan wilderness, where a transplanted Shaolin monk battles to protect his cultural heritage.”
• PURGATORY by Ron Marz, about “a rogue professor hired by the Catholic church to prove the afterlife exists” who endangers students during his experiments.
As usual, the superiority of the graphic novel as a medium to show flummoxed Hollywood types what something might look like is an important feature of the line:
“I had been looking for the right partner to develop properties through the graphic novel space, and Liquid reaches an audience without huge costs,” Eisner said. “The primary focus is to create properties with franchise potential, and studio-driven material.”
Devarajan added: “We’ve always looked at Liquid as a great way to incubate properties for films, games, animation and TV.”
and the artists are…?
Or will they not be important?
What cha’ readin’?
Property incubation!
wow, everytime i get a swell of hope for comics something like this pops up and crushes it.
The artists will be from the Virgin guys sweatshop…er, studio, in India I bet.
This doesn’t even sound like a legit deal. L+E picks the writers and they just happen to be Marz and Moore, Virgin’s former editors? Yeah ok.
Why don’t the studios just publish proposed storyboards?
So basically what Liquid Comics is saying is — there’s no value at all to the comic book medium. That comic books are just there so the contents can be turned into films so Chopra, Eisner & co. can get rich, that they mean nothing otherwise.
That’s awful. What an insult to all the REAL creators in this industry.
@Rocket Scientist — that is a really snide comment.
May I remind you that Mukesh Singh, the artist for GAMEKEEPER/DEVI/SHADOWHUNTER was a nominee for the 2008 Russ Manning award?
Ouch! What makes you think the artists work in a sweatshop, Rocket Scientist? Are you suggesting that they treat Indian artists poorly because India has no labor standards?
Yet how many of you people would bend over for the chance to work for these guys? You can say “no way, blah blah blah” but I find that the people quickest to slag off and insult, are those that find that they could never get into the industry.
Don’t pretend you know how the industry works. Don’t suggest you know what is best for the industry. When you offer something, when you present to the world some intelligent work, when you even self publish something, when you have some work of your own in hand – then you can come along and make your comments about this sort of thing “crushing your swell of hope for comics”, and that this isn’t “legit”.
Yeah,Sauv but the issue here is his treatment How well is he treated in comparison to artists in Europe or America. How much is he paid a page?
Yes, guys, comic book are just as useless as basketweavers because we have China and comic books are useless because reading is passe and art is reserved for people who are pyschologically disturbed.
The real world might occasionally take a comic and turn it into a profit-making movie but that’s no reason for anyone involved with comics to feel good about themselves. What you do and like isn’t important.
Sure Singh is a good artist. But why haven’t other companies tapped into his talents? It’s because the Virgin boys won’t allow journalists to even speak directly to him and Jeevan Kang so they won’t leave them and see that there are greener pastures.
@Rocket Scientist, I speak with Mukesh almost on a daily basis. Please try not to guess at what you don’t know. He has his own reasons for continuing on in India.
As per interviews: google “Nine Panel Grid Mukesh Singh”
@Saber Tooth Tiger Mike
One sad fact about Indian scene is that artists — the really good ones can make a really good payday working for Advertising and/or Concept Art for games/movies/animation as opposed doing comics even for the big two in US. So those like say Kang or Singh or Saumin Patel (my collaborator on DEVI, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN) who do work in comics, do so because they love making comics.
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