Mark Millar & John Romita’s Psychic Sam Kickstarter. That’s The News.

Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: john romita jr, Mark Millar

Kick-Ass creators Mark Millar and John Romita launch their Kickstarter for a new graphic novel Psychic Sam. That is the news.

Mark Millar began posting some teasers that he might be doing a Marvel/DC crossover. We were able to scotch that, but he followed up saying, “A short while ago, Marvel asked me if I’d come back and write a big summer crossover. Around the same time, DC asked if I’d do a huge Superman story for them. Being a fanboy, both invitations were very interesting, and I carved out 12 weeks in my Millarworld schedule. But when I sat down to write, at the end of last year, my brain went in a completely different direction that involved neither Marvel nor DC. Tomorrow you guys find out what that is…” And now we know. The multi-multi-multi-millionaire Mark Millar is launching a Kickstarter for the previously teased new graphic novel with his Kick Ass co-creator John Romita Jr and Klaus Janson, Psychic Sam. 

 “SAM NICOLETTI hears a voice in his head the day before something bad happens. The voice tells him the name and address of a murderer and if he ignores this voice an innocent person dies. At first he thought he was crazy, but as the bodies start building up, he realises he needs to do something and, after a while, he hears about a murder that’s SO HORRIFIC he needs to intervene. What would YOU do in this situation? You call the cops and they think you’re crazy because nothing bad has happened yet. But unless you take matters into your own hands, innocent people are going to SUFFER.”

Psychic Sam will not be a Netflix comic book series; it will be creator-owned by Millar and Romita, and they promise it will also be a major movie from Ivan Atkinson, producer of The Gentlemen and Wrath of Man. The Kickstarter publication will be through Side Hustle Comics. Watch the cost though, because it is being printed in the States, it will cost as much as the cover price to ship it back to the UK. A $25 cover price for the standard edition comes with shipping of $15-$25 to ship it to Europe. Is it worth $50 to you?

It has already received $3,667 pledges of its $27,138 goal with 41 backers and 43 days to go. On his newsletter, Millar says

“A year ago Marvel asked me to come back for a big special crossover project and I was intrigued. Civil War remains Marvel’s biggest selling graphic novel of all time and my mind was whirring with ideas to top it. A little while before, the big bosses at DC dropped me a line and asked if I wanted to do a huge Superman project, a slam dunk with the Superman movie coming up. As readers know, I’m also the biggest Superman fan of all time and don’t just have Christopher Reeve’s cape hanging up in my house, I have Frisky the cat Superman rescues from a tree in the Richard Donner movie stuffed and sitting on my piano.

“So both ideas intrigued me and I made a request to clear 12 weeks in my schedule last year so I could do ONE of them over October, November and December. But as I sat down to start figuring out what I wanted to write I got a call from John Romita Jr. Johnny and I did Wolverine together early in my career and loved working together so much that we created Kick-Ass to work on a few years later. Kick-Ass spawned movies, t-shirts, Halloween costumes and even Pez dispensers and we’ve always talked about working together again, but never found the right project. At the same time, Guy Ritchie’s brilliant producer Ivan Atkinson and I had been talking about doing a movie together and just looking for the right vehicle. Ivan has produced some of my favourite movies and TV shows in recent years from The Gentlemen to Wrath of Man to Paramount’s recent MobLand. So, again, I wanted to make this something great if we were finally going to be working together.

“That’s when I realised I was going to use this special 12 weeks I had carved out for something entirely new. Not Marvel, not DC, not even one of my Millarworld projects at Netflix. Johnny and I would create something exclusively for the Kickstarter market (which we’d never tried before) and team up with Ivan to make the movie at the same time. The result is Psychic Sam and we’ve just gone public in The Hollywood Reporter (link) where you can hear about the book, the Kickstarter campaign and the movie with a little teaser trailer explaining the concept.

“The idea for this beauty is basically Death Wish meets Minority Report. SAM NICOLETTI is a truck driver who gets details of a murder whispered in his ear 24 hours before it happens and if he ignores these voices, innocent people die. What would YOU do in this situation? It’s a really simple idea and plays into all the stuff Johnny and I love doing, especially at a time when comic publishers have been in retreat from those gritty, gun-loving vigilante comics with problematic anti-heroes upfront. The world right now feels like 1974 with crime soaring, cities going bust and a thirst for these kind of characters. It felt very on the money and exactly what we, personally, want to READ right now, which is always a good sign.

“The tiers in this campaign are fantastic, the book in paperback or hardcover editions, a black and white artist’s edition with no dialogue and even a 1970s style Marvel magazine-stye edition, printed large-scale and black and white inside with a painted cover by Star Wars legend Dave Dorman. We have stickers, apparel, posters, trading cards, you name it, and also the chance for four lucky readers to be written and drawn into the comic and gunned down by Psychic Sam himself.

“In movie terms, we’ll start spilling the beans on the writers, director and who we’ve got lined up for Sam over the coming weeks and months. It’s UNBELIEVABLY exciting and a chance to work with some old friends again (wait ’til you see WHO). Johnny and I are really pumped about this and can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on. The comic itself is square-bound and 64 pages long, there’ll be three volumes in total which we plan to finish over the next nine months. Big news, like we promised, followed next month by ANOTHER huge movie announcement for a project you’re all very familiar with and which, I think, will be the most violent movie of the decade when it’s released. Then, in July, a THIRD live-action project officially announced. We’ve been working very hard in the background here and you’re about to see all that work rolling out now.”

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