B7 Media announces first title of new Comics imprint

UK indie producer and publisher B7 Media has announced PILGRIM a new four-part comic book mini-series, the first title of a new comic book imprint B7 Comics based on original audio, film and television properties.

B7 Comics has revealed the first four-issue mini-series PILGRIM: Secrets and Lies will be written by former Marvel UK editor John Freeman (Crucible, Doctor Who), based on the universe created by Bev Doyle, Richard Kurti (Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, The Baker Street Irregulars, Wolfblood) and Andrew Mark Sewell (Dan Dare, I, Robot and Blake’s 7), featuring art by Neil Edwards (Spider-Man Season One, Torchwood), Alex Ronald (Lost Fleet, Doctor Who, Judge Dredd) and Wamberto Nicomedes, better known as Wam Nick (Anunnaki – The Lords of Eternity, King Cobra).

“B7 Comics has been in the works for a while and it’s great to be extending our long-time collaboration with John Freeman with this new publishing venture,” says B7 Media’s Managing Director, Andrew Mark Sewell. “Given our long association with reimagining genre favourites like Blake’s 7, The Martian Chronicles, I Robot and Dan Dare, it’s a natural progression for us to look to the world of comics and graphic novels as a platform to expand and develop some of our audio, film and television projects. Comics have rightly inspired a generation of filmmakers, so it’s nice to slightly reverse engineer the process and dramatise some of our properties into what I hope will be a long-running comic book series.”

“Most people associate me with my audio and indie film work,” Andrew continues. “But the truth is my connection to the world of comics stretches back to the late 1980s when I staged comic book events such as the launch of Judgement in Gotham and the Longest Comic Strip in the World, helped establish Stateside Comics as a franchise in Virgin Megastores and Hamleys, to my involvement with Great Eastern Conventions in the US. I’ve always recognised the incredible creative minds working in comics, so I’m delighted to be embracing this world once again.”

Writer John Freeman adds, “It was a pleasure working with Andrew and his team on the Dan Dare audio adventures, but working on Pilgrim, contributing to the creation of a completely new fictional universe, is challenging, fun and, from everything seen so far, rewarding. I’m glad to be part of it.”

Working in the world of comics is something very new to scriptwriters Kurti-Doyle, but it’s a transition they’ve relished. “As screenwriters, our primal instincts are always to think visually (even when writing for radio!) so it has been particularly exciting to see Pilgrim evolve into a graphic novel,” says Richard Kurti. “Turning books into screenplays involves a lot of distillation and turning a screenplay into a graphic novel takes this process even further; John has now produced the ‘pure alcohol’ version of Pilgrim!”

“What is particularly thrilling is the visual ambition of the piece,” adds Bev Doyle. “Scriptwriters are used to hearing the phrase ‘It’s nice, but we can’t afford it.’ Thankfully, that doesn’t apply to graphic novels – the only limit is the imagination.”

“There is a huge arc to Pilgrim; the themes work on the largest possible timescale, but the stories are played out on a very human scale, and John’s work captures this duality so well. We are always with the characters but remain constantly aware that they are riding on an epic story.”

The journey from teleplay to comic book was a natural progression agrees Kurti and Doyle, “From the very outset, Pilgrim was created with multiple media in mind, and we are delighted by this first incarnation.”

Writer: John Freeman | Cover Art: Alex Ronald | Artist: Neil Edwards

Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies digs deep into the millennia old strata of our planet and unearths something… completely unknown. Dormant since long before the dinosaurs, it’s incomprehensible, ancient – and alien.

With the world transformed by environmental disaster, tensions rising between the Western Alliance and the Eastern Coalition and space colonisation beyond our solar system now within easy reach, the discovery lying beneath the Antarctic ice promises to be a threat we have never faced before.

Some will go to extreme lengths to expose the deadly enigma’s secrets. And others will go even further to protect them.

Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies launches with a special prequel story, drawn by Wamberto Nicomedes (Wam Nick), which will feature in SHIFT Magazine from GetMyComics and through other distribution points.