Nic Cage to Star in Werner Herzog’s Remake of “Bad Lieutenant”

According to Variety, Nicolas Cage, co-creator of Virgin Comics’ Voodoo Child, will be starring in a remake of Bad Lieutenant. Production is set to start in late summer and the film will be directed by Werner Herzog, who very well might be the coolest man alive. The only thing we’re disappointed about is that this film likely will not have any of Herzog’s trademark voiceover, which could make a compelling film out of a reading of the telephone book!

To celebrate this development, we’re offering $5 off every purchase of the Limited Edition Voodoo Child hardcover book of which only 1000 copies were printed. All you have to do is use the code WERNER.

You can also check out a recent Geeks of Doom review of Voodoo Child here.

Carey does the script for all six of these issues and really swings for the fences for each book. Each book is filled with great dialogue and excellent storytelling. Whether it is Gabriel journey to avenge his father’s death or the subplot involving two detectives and a string of kidnappings, Carey gives you the impression that he is building toward something bigger.

Nic Cage Rules As #1 Celebrity Comic Book Geek

In a recent Pulp Secret article, Nicolas Cage was selected as the #1 celebrity comic book geek. No surprises there! Here are some highlights from Nic’s comic book geekery:

Nicolas Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola and changed his name to Nicolas Cage, inspired by Marvel Comics’ Luke Cage. Cage also named his son Kal-el after Superman’s birth name. Nicolas Cage has always been a notorious collector of everything imaginable (not just comic books). However, his comic book collection was rumored to be one of the most valuable collections ever owned by a celebrity (let alone by any single person). We’re talking multiple #1s of the most famous comic book characters including Batman and Superman. The sale of his collection was said to be the highest reported amount for a comic book auction, with a total value of 5.2 million dollars.

Nicolas Cage recently created the Virgin Comics series, Voodoo Child, with his son Weston Cage. Now you can update your own collection with the Voodoo Child Limited Edition Hardcover book from our online store. Only 2000 were printed worldwide and few copies remain so act fast!

Comic-Con Photos

Nic & Weston Cage after the Voodoo Child signing

Jenna Jameson at the VC booth

Jenna having fun

Jenna signing SHADOW HUNTER lithographs

Ed Burns at the DOCK WALLOPER press conference

AUGUST PREVIEWS

Check out what’s out this month from Virgin Comics and let us know what you think or will be picking up. Click on the images for a bigger size.

DEVI #13 (August 22, 2007)

Her past was Tara Mehta, powerless young woman in the big, bad city of Sitapur. Her present is DEVI, super-powered reincarnation of an ancient celestial warrior fighting to make the world a better place. It is her future that is uncertain, as she encounters a darkness within herself that threatens to consume her, a loved one who returns from the dead possessed by a spirit of apocalypse, and a hated enemy who becomes an uneasy ally.

Tara has sworn to make Sitapur a safer place and starts using her powers to take on the Sitapur underworld. But the strain is taking its toll on her. Nothing makes sense in Tara’s life anymore as the lines between DEVI and Tara start to blur. Meanwhile, Kratha, the razor-clawed assassin, returns to make good on her contract to kill DEVI.

WESTON & NICOLAS CAGE’S VOODOO CHILD #2 (August 8, 2007)

Gabriel Moore’s life should have ended almost 150 years ago—and in some ways, it did—but he was brought back by John Messenger, to the world of post-Katrina New Orleans. As he closes in on his human enemies, his path once again runs across Detective Robert Julien’s murder investigation, with violent results. But Gabriel is being hunted in his turn, by the most powerful of the voodoo loas, and Baron Samedi has his own terrifying ways of dealing with the risen dead… Don’t miss this latest installment from the creative minds of Nic and Weston Cage, and scripted by Mike Carey!

GUY RITCHIE’S GAMEKEEPER #4 (August 22, 2007)

As Brock begins to piece together the mystery behind the death of Jonah Morgan, his own mysterious background is brought further to light. And now he is out of his element on the streets of Amsterdam, and has to put this new, urban environment into his own language of the wild in order to survive. Yet, as he closes in on his prey—the shadowy figure seemingly at the center of his quest—even his animalistic intuition can’t prepare him for the harshest twist yet in this electrically charged tale.

DEEPAK CHOPRA’S INDA AUTHENTIC #4: UMA (August 8, 2007)

“One life claimed by tragedy, one birth consumed by the flames of separation, I have been given a second chance by destiny, a second birth, a new life, to redeem myself and reclaim the love of my life.

I am UMA, the all-mother. I too am Shakti, the power divine and this time I shall move mountains, march into the very mouth of hellfire to reunite with my love, my liege, Lord Shiva, God of Gods.”

Virgin Comics and Deepak Chopra invite you to a timeless lovestory of epic proportions that transcends even the barriers of death and rebirth. Relive the legend of Uma, the benevolent mother goddess and her undying love for Lord Shiva.

SADHU: THE SILENT ONES #1 (August 15, 2007)

In the 19th century, when the sun did not dare set on the British Empire, James Jensen went to India as a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army. Losing his family to betrayal and brutal violence, Jensen became a SADHU, a mystic warrior who must walk the spiritual path to salvation. As the latest chapter of the saga begins, emptiness rules James Jensen’s heart, and he wanders aimlessly. His travels bring him to the Kumbh Mela, an epic gathering of mystics, where deadly enemies and shadowy allies lie in wait. But an even bigger surprise awaits James, as he learns that a loved one might still live.

RAMAYAN 3392AD RELOADED #1 (August 22, 2007)

The epic tale Ramayan 3392 A.D. has just been reloaded! The quest of the hero Rama, his loyal brother Lakshman, and the beautiful Seeta has just begun, with the original creative team now guided by comic impresario Ron Marz. This issue marks a jumping-on point for readers, and sees the beginning of a regular series of character-driven back-up features, penned by Marz and drawn by a series of superstar comics artists. In this issue, Marz and Michael Avon Oeming (Powers, Red Sonja) tell the tale of Rama himself, while in the lead feature the wounds Rama has suffered in battle have left him at death’s door, and only a miracle can save him. If Rama perishes … so does the world’s hope.

Alternate cover by Michael Avon Oeming.

Pre-order Weston Cage and Nicolas Cage’s Voodoo Child #1

Pre-order your copy of Voodoo Child from Virgin Comic’s online store. Click here for the Ben Templesmith cover and here for the variant by series artist, Dean Hyrapiet. All orders will ship July 11, 2007.

USA TODAY: Cage and son work comic ‘Voodoo’

Check out the link for USA Today’s coverage on Weston Cage & Nicolas Cage’s Voodoo Child (in stores July 11, 2007).

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-07-02-nicolas-cage-comics_N.htm

VOODOO CHILD: Fear of the Dark!

 

There are things that live in the dark through choice. Most of your typical horror staples would fall into this category—vampires, werewolves, demons and the like. It’s in their blood. You know they’ll always gravitate to the shadows, and that’s where you expect to see them.

But you can find yourself in the dark for a lot of other reasons, too: reasons that are nothing to do with your own choices or your own nature. Imagine a monster that lives in the dark, like it or not, because the dark has been woven through it like a ribbon through braided hair; because the dark has become a necessary part of it.

A zombie without a viable physical body: a ghost haunted by itself. That’s our Voodoo Child, as envisioned by Nic and Weston Cage, and we like to think he’s a long way from the monster-du-jour vibe of the classic horror or ghost story. Pick up the first issue and you’ll see what I mean. Gabriel Moore is a night creature unlike any you’ve ever seen before – and there are mysteries about his creation and his nature that will make you, as they unfold, continually see him in different lights.

Gabe’s backstory is unique too: stretching from the last days of the antebellum South to the traumatized landscapes of post-Katrina New Orleans, and drawing the two together into an unsettling skein of secrets and revelations. As up-close and personal as most good horror is, this is also a comic book about a place: a unique and amazing city, and the people who live in it.

At this point I have to make a confession that may disturb you. I’m British.

Okay, that doesn’t bar me from writing about America. Obviously not. I’ve written many books set in New York, Los Angeles, Nevada, Arizona… But then I’ve been to those places, and I’d never been to New Orleans.

At some point when we were plotting out our first arc, I realised that this was going to be an insuperable obstacle. You can only bluff so far, and the setting in this book is so important to the story that I felt I was hamstringing myself and endangering the project by working just from travel books and documentaries.

So in February of this year I packed a case and headed out for the Big Easy, arriving a week before Mardi Gras. This was eighteen months after Katrina: the Mardi Gras after the one they talked about cancelling. I took a cab from the airport straight into the Quarter and found myself – at half past one in the morning – in the midst of a citywide party bigger and wilder than anything I’d ever seen.

My first thought was that I’d messed up the timing badly: how was I going to get a feel for the rhythms and landscapes of the city if I was fighting my way through crowds the whole time and being distracted by this massive, heroic saturnalia?

If you’ve ever been to New Orleans, you can probably see the punchline coming here. For me, it took until the Monday night – the eve of Fat Tuesday – to realise that I was seeing the spirit of the city given physical form. This was New Orleans shouting itself to the skies: saying in words, in music, in dance and in a billion colored beads “we’re still alive, and we’re still here!”

I took a lot of photos too; visited voodoo temples and urban cemeteries and levee walls, Louis Armstrong Park and the convention centre. That was what I was there for, after all. But I think it was the epiphany that came to me on that Monday night, when I was walking down Bourbon Street on a rainbow-colored carpet of beads with a “big-ass beer” in one hand and a cigar in the other (only cigar I’ve smoked in the last ten years, swear to God) that justified the trip and got me on the right wavelength to write this story.

Umm… I don’t mean I wrote it drunk, by the way. I just mean that something clicked at that point; something came right. And although I felt like I was made out of cracked glass as I packed my case again and headed out for the airport on Thursday morning, I was already thinking out the first scenes of Voodoo Child#1 as I went. And, you know, wondering how much of this was going to be tax-deductible…

If you know New Orleans, I hope you recognize it as it appears in this story. If you don’t, I hope you’ll see some of the Big Easy’s many moods reflected here – and maybe get inspired to go and see the reality for yourself.

Mike Carey, June 2007

Weston & Nicolas Cage’s Voodoo Child: Sneak Peeks from Ben Templesmith

Ben Templesmith is doing some covers for this book (written by Mike Carey and art by Dean Hyrapiet) that hits the stands on July 11th. He has posted layouts from idea generation to final (for cover #1) on his blog. Click here to check it out.

Thanks Ben and look forward to more soon.

Pulp Secret Video Blog on Virgin Comics

http://www.pulpsecret.com/episode/PSR_20070611

Virgin Comics: Hello Blogosphere!

For those new to Virign Comics, it is a partnership between Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and the company our CEO Sharad Devarajan co-founded in 1997, Gotham Entertainment Group (www.gothamcomics.com).

Similar to the success of Japanese anime and manga, our mission is to define a new wave of Indian character entertainment and permeate this style and vision to audiences from Boston to Beijing to Bangalore.

Guided by Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur, our studio of artists and writers are sparking a creative renaissance in India—leading the country’s transition from outsourcer to a source of innovative and dynamic creations and creators. With a unique creative and cultural identity, the 500 million youths of India today are sparking a transition in thinking for their country and for their world.

Our Shakti line of comics collects stories based on ancient Indian mythologies but re-imagined for a global audience.

The Director’s Cut brings together iconic filmmakers and the best comics writers, including Shekhar Kapur + Zeb Wells, John Woo + Garth Ennis, Guy Ritchie + Andy Diggle.

The Virgin Voices imprint collects comics created by innovative minds from artists of different media like Dave Stewart and Nicolas Cage.

For more info visit www.virgincomics.com