Broken Frontier

Gary Young, writer of UK box office hit film Harry Brown, has announced that his two-volume graphic novel entitled Madam Samurai will have its official launch on 12 June 2010 from 1pm to 5pm at the Infinity & Beyond shop in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. To see artwork previews and a book trailer please visit madamsamurai.com.

The book follows a female samurai warrior who travels to Victorian London on a mission of vengeance. Those attending will have the chance to meet and have copies signed by writer Young, as well as by Madam Samurai’s Eagle Award winning artist David Hitchcock whose stunning work on titles such as Spring Heeled Jack and Whitechapel Freak is well known to comic book fans. Character creator and movie producer Gael McLaughlin, who has worked on films such as Harry Brown and The Tournament, will also be attending the launch.

Press and fan attention has already been overwhelmingly positive, with a recent review on website Ain’t It Cool News stating; “Man, this is a beautiful comic. Artist David Hitchcock shines in this absolutely gorgeous story of a young girl who becomes a samurai. This is a very cool origin story by writer Gary Young that takes its time to allow the reader to develop real feelings toward the title character...highly recommended.”

Writer Gary Young describes how the project started life: Madam Samurai began as a one-line pitch devised by film producer Gael McLaughlin. The notion absolutely intrigued me and so we began to develop the idea into a full screenplay.”  Young continued “the more the idea grew it became clear that it was way beyond what we had access to in terms of production budget. However, it also became clear to us that this was also perfect material for a graphic novel. Of course one day we’d still love the story to appear on the big screen.”

Shane Chebsey of Scar Comics soon came on board as publisher and introduced artist David Hitchcock to the project. Shane said, “As soon as I read the Madam Samurai script I knew that this was a project I really wanted to be involved with. The way I always pictured it in my mind was what if Charles Dickens had written Kill Bill?"

If Madam Samurai does make the transition from book to screen it will be following a very well-established Hollywood tradition. Producer Gael McLaughlin said; “The transition from comic book to film is a well-known one, but what makes Madam Samurai very different is that it started life as a film script. Now we’re in the great position of having found that other people love the story as much as we all do, so hopefully this also brings us a step closer to enjoying this fascinating character’s adventures in live action too.”

To watch the trailer, view artwork and read more about Madam Samurai please visit http://www.madamsamurai.com