Welcome. We thought we’d start our first post by acknowledging a number of topics that we have been following on the board, letting you into our current development process as to where we are, and explaining briefly where we are headed.
First, we wanted to explain that adapting the Honorverse to various visually-driven platforms such as comics, games, TV and film requires us to reimagine some of what has long been held as gospel to the core fanbase. This is not to be an affront to the numerous designers that have been involved with the World to date, it is not to suggest that the works of Mattingly, Genkkis, BuNine and the fans are in any way inferior to what we will develop – it’s purely a side effect of taking David’s books into new visual media. These formats require movement, visual storytelling, instant identification and the creation of characters or environments without any presumption that can stand on their own against other science fiction franchises without requiring prior knowledge of the Honorverse.
All of the concept art we have shown has been developed with a great deal of investigation, care and attention to the details of the Honorverse, and ALL of it is still work in progress. We have spent the last year working with numerous talented film artists such as Patrick Tatopolous (I am Legend, Underworld, Total Recall), Matt Codd (Men in Black, Terminator 3 & 4, Saving Private Ryan), Jim Oxford (X-Men 2, Jurassic Park 2, Planet of the Apes) and Blur Studios (Thor: The Dark World, Avatar, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). We feel privileged to be working with artists of this caliber and are incredibly excited by the work that is being done, but we haven’t yet fully nailed the look of the Worlds, the Ships, the Characters, the Costumes and the Treecat. The visual process takes time, and our concept art can still change a great deal.
While continuing to develop the visual language of the Honorverse, we have started to produce actual real-world commercial content. First up, we have a comic book, created in collaboration with Top Cow Productions and to be published by Image Comics. The first issue will be released March 5th, 2014, followed by an issue per month. An iOS/Android game is also being developed in collaboration with Idol Minds that we will publish mid-March.
The reason for these commercial ventures is to start spreading the word about Honor beyond the key fan base to those unschooled in the Honorverse, to broaden the appeal and hopefully motivate more people to discover and fall in love with David’s work. Growing the audience over time allows us to drive to our eventual goal – an Honor Harrington feature film – so when we arrive we have a “four quadrant” engaged audience that can support a movie of this size and ambition.
Because these two ventures are happening in parallel with our ongoing art creation and exploration, you are likely to see things appear there that aren’t representative of what will be our final vision for the feature film. We have been reading your reaction to art pieces that have been made public and your notes are always taken on board. In particular, we have noted your reaction to Honor and her attire, the ships and Nimitz – we will address these topics in threads to give ample space for focused discussion.
In the next week we'll start with the topic of Honor and her Uniform, until then - thanks!
At the same time, I hope that you'll make Honor's uniform look like a military uniform worn by a professional naval officer. What I've seen so far in the comic book covers has not left a positive impression on me.