by Ani Bundel
At Saturday’s BRZRKR panel in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, actor, musician, comics creator, and writer Keanu Reeves received an Inkpot Award for his contributions across comics and movies.
The 2021 debut of the BRZRKR series was a smash hit right out of the gate. It helped that the series was created and written by Reeves with superstar comics writer Matt Kindt and drawn by Ron Garney. Saturday’s Hall H lineup rarely has comics panels, as it’s usually reserved for movies and TV adaptations. However, Reeves’s and the multiple BRZRKR adaptations in the works (both animated and live-action) make this one of the rare comics to headline the infamous venue.
Moderator Tiffany Smith introduced an animated video trailer for the new run of comics heading to shelves before bringing out the panel, including Reeves, Kindt, Garney, plus BOOM! Studios’s Matt Gagnon, Stephen Christy, and Keith Clayton.
The first run of the comic introduces an immortal warrior known as Berzerker as he fights his way through different timelines. The comic has been releasing a new volume a year since, with Volume 4 beginning in August 2024.
Reeves sold the idea to Gagnon and Christy: “I’ve done kung fu in The Matrix, I’ve done jiu-jitsu in John Wick, now I want to invent a new form of fighting for this comic.” Reeves also discussed how he loves the visuals of comics, how hung up he’ll get on different fonts, and what a major font nerd he is.
In January 2024, it was announced that Reeves would work on The Book of Elsewhere with British author China Miéville. Miéville was not on the panel but sent a video talking about the process of working with Reeves and how impressed he was with how character-focused the actor was (though he admitted probably that shouldn’t have surprised him). For Reeves, it was a fantastic experience to have a professional treat him as a fellow creative without any of the starstruck stuff he usually has to deal with first. The resulting novel is out now.
Smith asked what other mediums are planned, and Gagnon said it depends on the story. If the story has to be a novel, then it’ll be a novel; if it has to be an animation, that’s the right direction. Reeves read out loud from The Book of Elsewhere to the room, reminding the audience that he makes an excellent audiobook reader.
However, the panel’s first major announcement was that BRZRKR is about to outgrow its A-list creator. Christy announced that BRZRKR Comics will be doing a new run of multimedia stories where other creators will take on the universe and tell their own stories within it. The fans weren’t the only ones for whom this was a surprise announcement. Reeves had no idea this was coming, and you could tell he was touched and chuffed that his idea was taking on a life of its own.
The second was the confirmation that a live-action movie and an animated series will be coming to Netflix. Stephen Christy announced the former, which Mattson Tomlin will write. The panel then cut to Tomlin’s video, where he announced the TV series. Both admitted this was still an early day, but both were bullish about how these projects came together.
But the room really went wild when Todd McFarlane walked out on stage with something covered with a black cloth. The second wave of merch for the franchise had just been introduced, and McFarlane had the prototypes of the Reeves-inspired Berzerker to show. In an old-school moment, Reeves began playing with his own figurine, making it talk. It was utterly adorable.
BRZRKR: The Lost Book of B will go on sale August 28. The Book of Elsewhere is available now everywhere books are sold. Pre-orders are available for the second wave of BRZRKR merch. Both adaptations (movie and TV) will start filming in 2025.
Stay tuned for more SDCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
