Transmedia producer and writer Dr Jean Pierre Magro together with Rune Bendixen has been recently entrusted with translating the internationally acclaimed Hitman series into a fresh comic production. Game developers IO Interactive gave birth to Agent 47, the Hitman through a video game which defined a generation of gamers.
Dynamite Entertainment recently announced that writer Christopher Sebela (Hellraiser, Injustice: Ground Zero, Green Lantern/Space Ghost), and artist Jonathan Lau (Bionic Man, Battlestar Galactica) teamed up to bring the world of the popular video game franchise. The project is fruit of a new partnership with transmedia outfit Gunpowder Studios, in conjunction with video game developer IO Interactive.
"A transmedia producer is an architect. Any product today, any intellectual property needs to develop into a lifestyle. This is the way forward. The way to do that is to make it part and parcel of everything we do in life," Jean Pierre Magro explained when asked to define what transmedia translates into.
Speaking to the Malta Independent, Magro said that the young generation consume media differently.
"The younger generation is platform neutral. For them, newspapers, tablets, video games and movies, they are all the same. Some time ago, when I was younger at least, cinema was the higher form of entertainment. There was a varying scale. Cinema was the peak, television followed, video games, comics and so on. Young people today want to experience everything on varying platforms."
Magro explained that this can be used to the developer's advantage.
"Before, we used to work on adaptations. What we're doing now, is taking the universe, dissect it and tell another part of this amazing universe in comics. Who plays the game will have the opportunity to discover something new, and those who are simply interested in comics, the stories are stand-alone material."
Reading the comic will bring an insight into how was the Hitman himself created. In fact, the first six issues of the comic series will be about The Birth of the Hitman. It will delve into the origin of one of gaming's most infamous characters, Agent 47.
47 and his handler, Diana Burnwood, are a team responsible for some of the most ruthless, efficient and untraceable assassinations across the globe. But before they were operatives of the shadowy International Contracts Association, 47 and Burnwood were on their own separate paths in life - streets lined with blood, bullets and revenge. As 14-year-old Diana begins a mission to track down the people who killed her parents, 47 is struggling to free himself and his friend, 6, from the mysterious Institute which has bred them as killers since they were kids. With a story that stretches from the heartland of America to the Berlin Wall, Lone Wolves will trace the birth of the legendary Hitman and the secret past of the woman behind him who pulls the string and knows just how hard taking a life truly is.
"No one ever told the story of how Agent 47 came about. This is the first time that there is such an intrinsic link between the comics and the new upcoming game."
Writer Chris Sebela, who together with Magro and other artists worked on the comics, is a two-time Eisner-Award nominated writer forever hard at work in Portland, Oregon. He's the co-creator of Heartthrob, High Crimes, We(l)come Back, Dead Letters and Short Order Crooks as well as having written things like Kiss/Vampirella, Detective Comics, Escape from New York, Captain Marvel, Injustice: Ground Zero and Demonic.
Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman #1 will be solicited in Diamond Comic Distributors' August 2017 Previews catalog, the premier source of merchandise for the comic book specialty market, and slated for release in October. Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman #1 will also be available for individual customer purchase through digital platforms courtesy of Comixology, Kindle, iBooks, Google Play, Dynamite Digital, iVerse, Madefire, and Dark Horse Digital.