Eisner Award winning Jeff Smith of Bone fame has just found himself in a very nice position. His black-and-white comic book RASL has been optioned for a feature film.
RASL is a science fiction noir comic book series written and drawn by Smith, originally self-published in 2008. The book centers on an ex-military scientist turned art thief, named RASL, who travels to parallel universes to steal parallel paintings. Of course the life of a thief is fraught with problems as RASL is hunted by the police, the government and an lizard-faced assassin.
According to Deadline, Lionel Wigram, the producer who cleverly put together a short comic treatment with artist Gregory Noveck for his Sherlock Holmes movie pitch to Warner Bros., is the one who has acquired the rights to RASL.
“Wigram, who just wrapped Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, said he was tipped to the comic by colleague Peter Eskelsen and bought it with his own cash” reported Deadline. Wigram will act as producer with Eskelsen and Smith along as executive producers. ”We’ll team with a writer and figure out how to adapt it to the screen and hopefully it will become a big movie franchise for Warner Bros.,” said Wigram.
