Jonathan Ross Pens Introduction To Tales Of The Fallen

That’s the graphic novel element of a massive “transmedia project” called Unseen Shadows, masterminded by Geek Syndicate’s Barry Nugent

Tales Of The Fallen is the second graphic novel based on Nugent’s bestselling urban fantasy novel Fallen Heroes which came out in 2007 (the first part of a trilogy). That spawned the first graphic novel, Fallen Heroes , which was launched in February 2011 at the Cardiff International Comic Expo. The first issue sold out within 30 minutes of the convention doors opening, and in that moment the transmedia project that became known as Unseen Shadows was born.

In fact, the original novel was going to be called Unseen Shadows , but, says Nugent, “the more I worked on the story the more I felt that the title was a little too overarching to fit one book. I knew I was going to tell this one huge adventure spread over three books and so Unseen Shadows became the overall theme for that story.”

Since then, Unseen Shadows has blossomed into a multimedia phenomenon. As well as the graphic novels, there are audio dramas ( which launched yesterday ) and a live action web series in the making.

The Tales Of The Fallen graphic novel features four stories, each focusing on a different character from Fallen Heroes . As Ross says in his intro, “If, like me, you like rip-roaring testosterone fuelled pulp fiction, with soldiers, and mysteries, and all round weird stuff in, then this is the book for you!”

Tales Of The Fallen will be launching at the Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds on 19-20 November along with a number of other Unseen Shadows projects:

• Fallen Heroes the novel – a special convention only edition of the novel containing interviews, previews and more.
• Fallen Heroes the audio novel – An audio edition of the novel narrated by David Ault.
• Fallen Heroes the comic adaptation – The second issue of the adaptation of the bestselling novel.
• Empire of Blood - The first episode of the six part audio drama.
• Fallen Heroes the web series – Storyboards from the live action web series in development.

“I approached Jonathan a while back with Tales Of The Fallen and asked him if he would be interested in writing the introduction for the anthology. To say I was pleased when he accepted is a little bit of an understatement,” explains Nugent.

“Having someone as knowledgeable as Jonathan (not to mention somebody who is something of an accomplished comics writer himself) on board is a huge boost to an already thunderous project. If I was excited about Tales Of The Fallen hitting the stands before, now I’m practically doing backflips,” said Dan Thompson, one of the writers on Tales Of The Fallen , sharing the excitement felt by the entire team.”

You can pre-order a copy of Tales Of The Fallen now.

Nugent is currently working Forgotten Warriors , the follow up to Fallen Heroes.