From Publisher’s Weekly: Details on the First Digital Comic From Amazon Studios
Later this summer, Amazon Studios, the film and TV development arm of e-commerce giant Amazon, will publish its first digital comic based on a promising screenplay, soliciting reviews from a massive online community as it grooms the screenplay for Hollywood and elsewhere. …
“The comic book community is accustomed to engaging in a creative way with ideas and concepts,” said Amazon Studios director Roy Price, speaking by phone with PW. “With a comic book, you have the opportunity to let an idea spread its wings a little bit and explore its universe a little more at length.” …
“Whether you have a test comic or test movie, it’s all part of giving fans an important voice in the development process,” Price said. “If you don’t have any evidence that people like that idea, it can be difficult to finance.”
At Amazon’s request, the first screenplay to be released as a digital comic will be Jay Levy’s Blackburn Burrow, a story set in pre-Civil War America where “supernatural horrors are infesting a small Appalachian town in Northern Georgia.” 12 Gauge Comics has been commissioned to create it, tapping veteran comics writer Ron Marz and illustrator Matthew Dow Smith. Both have credits in mainstream comics publishing.
