NYCC08: GRANT MORRISON JOINS WITH VIRGIN COMICS FOR MBX

[MattBrady]

by Chris Mautner

If the stars align, Eastern mythology will meet Western storytelling and technology at San Diego this year.

That’s when Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan, renowned writer Grant Morrison (Batman, Final Crisis) and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, The Four Feathers) hope to debut a new animated series, produced by Virgin Comics for the Internet and mobile phones.

The three men held a panel Friday evening at the New York Comic-Con to talk about their plans.

“We have, for a long time,” tried to find a way to work with Grant Morrison,” said Devarajan. “Today we are about to make those plans a reality.”

“It’s a completely new type of media for me to work in,” Morrison said, who compared working on the project to the way that the Beatles tried to translate Indian ragas into psychedelic sounds in the 1960s.

The series, entitled MBX, will be a futuristic retelling of the Mahabharata, the classic and very lengthy epic poem written several thousand years ago in Sanskrit.

Totaling more than 90,000 verses, the Mahabharata tells the story of the struggle for the throne of Hastinapura and culminates in an 18-day war between families, ending with the death of Krishna and the dawning of the Kali Yuga, the fourth and final age of mankind (which we are currently in). It’s one of the central texts in Hinduism and includes oft-quoted Bhagavad Gita .

Each episode will be four minutes in length and will utilize 3-D motion capture animation. Kapur said he wants to direct several of the episodes that Morrison will write, which will take place in the far-flung future.

Devarajan said he hopes to debut the first episode at the San Diego Comic-Con with following episodes coming out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, though that was far from final at this point.

“We’re retelling the oldest myths using modern technology,” he said.

Morrison was also quick to praise the cadre of artists in the Virgin Comics stable.

“The artists are amazing,” he said. They are kicking the Western guys’ asses. These guys should be international stars.”

Though the panel frequently degenerated into philosophical discussions of the notion of destiny, infinity and the ultimate fate of humanity, Morrison stressed that one of the reasons he was attracted to doing this project was not just the epic nature of the work but also its underlying sense of humanity.

“In western film the bad guys would be demonic, but [here] it isn’t so,” he said. “It’s the story of a world at war with itself. It really dramatizes where we are just now.”

Morrison said the series would “start with the mythic and … move to the personal. We’ll get to see the warriors as men and see the stories that brought them [to the battlefield]. We start with the Star Wars movie, and ripple out from there to the lives of people who have been affected by it.”

When asked whether he felt intimidated by trying to reinterpret another culture’s mythology, Morrison cited the common bonds that unite such stories.

“Superhero comics are based on Greek myths. But [early comic creators] found something to translate and make sense to them,” he said.

“The human experience is universal We all feel sick. We all die. We all feel sorrow. Once you get underneath the gloss you find the thing that touches everyone. “

[anuragsahay]

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH I have to read this!

[KashK]

does this in any way affect his exclusive with DC or he no longer under contract?

[apoehler]

Originally Posted by anuragsahay

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH I have to read this!

Originally Posted by KashK

does this in any way affect his exclusive with DC or he no longer under contract?

It's an animated series, not a comic book.

Originally Posted by MattBrady

That’s when Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan, renowned writer Grant Morrison (Batman, Final Crisis) and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, The Four Feathers) hope to debut a new animated series, produced by Virgin Comics for the Internet and mobile phones.

[SMARTASS8]

Originally Posted by KashK

does this in any way affect his exclusive with DC or he no longer under contract?

It seems like exclusive is another way of saying "don't work for Marvel" or "don't work for DC".