Ridley Scott, the director of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and countless other all-time movie classics, is moving into the graphic novel arena for the first time. He will be teaming up with the newly-formed comics division of Mechanical Cake for three planned launches on which he "will lend his meticulous eye and unmatched world-building skills to the projects," according to a statement released to the press.
The first of these will be Modville, described as a "sci-fi/southern gothic crime drama" featuring AI humans known as "mods". We're told that eight books of Modville will be forthcoming, drawn by Hendry Prasetya and Eko Puteh, with a release date for the first volume set for March 2025.
That will be followed by Hyde, a riff on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale with the monstrous Mr. Hyde now lurking beneath the streets of London; and Nick, described slightly cryptically as a "foundational Yule war story, steeped within the arcane Norse legends." No dates or creative teams have been publicly announced for those two as yet.
"Mechanical Cake is a terrific company," said Ridley Scott in a statement about the new venture. "They understand the art of graphic novels. As an artist and painter, these projects are exciting to me, and I look forward to collaborating with Jesse, Tom, Dave, and the Mechanical Cake team."
He's referring to CEO Jesse Negron and COO Tom Sanders there, as well as the newly-founded comics division's publisher/editor-in-chief Dave Elliott. A host of well-established comics artists, including Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Weston, Dan Panosian, and Brian Rood, will also be involved.
Tom Moran, Senior VP Development & Production at Scott Free and overseer of the joint venture with Mechanical Cake, said: "Ridley and Tony Scott are known as great filmmakers but few people realize their shared first true love of painting and art is what drove both of them into filmmaking. For the first time in Scott Free's history, we are excitedly diving into comics as a new way to explore art and storytelling."
We'll be keeping an eye on this one...
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