Virgin Comics has tied up with SCI FI Channel for development of content based on Science Fiction.
The announcement was made on 26th February by Dave Howe, SCI FI Executive Vice President and General Manager and Virgin Comics CEO & Publisher Sharad Devarajan at the New York Comic Conference.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan shared, “One of the principle reasons the Sci-Fi Channel was interested in working with us is because they feel the future of science fiction is really tapping into a certain spiritual side in storytelling rather than just spaceships. For example a show like “Lost” is probably a direction of the future of Science Fiction – this has also been a focus of the Virgin Comics creative team.”
SCI FI‘s Dave Howe shared his comments, “SCI FI/Virgin Comics marks an important step in our strategy to extend the SCI FI brand into new cross-media platforms. We‘re thrilled to be partnering with Virgin Comics to create exciting new titles, characters and stories that can live beyond the pages of the comic book. Virgin is the perfect brand to help us connect with the youth audience around the world.”
The joint venture which has been named SCI FI/Virgin Comics will be started with five new comic book titles.
Talking more about the partnership Sharad said, “For years there have been comics based on popular television shows, however when Gotham Chopra and I met with Dave Howe and the Sci-Fi team we collectively found there was a real opportunity to flip the model and work together to incubate new television and multi-media properties in the form of comics first”
“This is an extension of the business strategy we have always had at Virgin Comics to use comic books as our “R&D Laboratory” to incubate new intellectual properties and ultimately expand those great stories into other media. For a television network it makes total sense to test new property development in a visual medium like comics before investing heavily in the pilot.
On being asked if the Indian Myths and philosophies that Virgin was focusing on would be seen in this initiative too?, Devarajan replied, “Many of the young Indian artists who work for us will be working on these new comics and many of the Indian writers we have will have an opportunity to submit story ideas to this new venture. So though we will not be heavily focused on the Indian myths in this new partnership-there will certainly be a significant number of Indian creative influences on the projects.