David Lloyd's 'Kickback' graphic novel arrives on the iPad

It's the mask protesting about corruption and greed around the world, and its creator David Lloyd, the artist behind V for Vendetta, has just released an interactive graphic novel for the iPad addressing those very issues.

"V for Vendetta was concerned with how a society becomes corrupt and how it frees itself from corruption," he says. "My graphic novel, Kickback, resonates with this theme, but it is about how one man frees himself from the shackles of his own corruption."

Kickback follows the story of Joe Canelli, a corrupt cop in a tough city, haunted by his dreams and confused by his past. When his partner is murdered and his colleagues betray him, Canelli must confront his past and question the direction of his life.

Kickback is a fast-paced thriller that explores themes of corruption, consciousness, society, and self-respect against a big-city backdrop," says Lloyd.

The iPad app (which takes advantage of the new retina screen) presents Kickback in a stunning high-quality digital format, with a specially-designed user interface that gives the reader smooth swiping from page to page, flawless pixel-per-second movement, and effortless transition to Panel Mode to view enlarged panels one by one in beautiful detail.

The app also includes an audio commentary by the artist, an exclusive interview, and production notes and sketches.

In the exclusive interview Lloyd discusses a range of issues and details his experience of launching the print version of Kickback just after the V for Vendetta movie was released and is scathing about former publisher Dark Horse and their lack of promotion of his work.

In relation to the decision to release the work in iPad format, Lloyd commented, "Intelligent graphic novels for adults have rarely been able to find the readership they deserve. With this iPad version of Kickback, we're making something I'm very proud of available to millions of people who wouldn't think of scanning the graphic novel section of a bookstore, or entering a comic shop. The format also allows us to add features that would either not be possible or be too expensive in a printed book. The whole thing looks fantastic and I'm very excited to see my work in this form."

The artist worked with Tokyo-based digital publisher Panel Nine Publishing who specialize in fully-featured software for digital graphic novels. Publisher Russell Willis, a Brit, commented: "Not all digital comics are created equal. The 'lean back' nature of the iPad allows immersion into the material and we have created software which sweats the small stuff to exploit the features of the device and create the optimal reader experience. This is a world away from reading a dodgy PDF on a computer monitor. Kickback is the future of the graphic novel."

Kickback is available for all versions of the iPad and can be purchased from iTunes for $9.99.

- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kickback-crime-noir-thriller/id511224450?mt=8

APP DESCRIPTION

This app presents Kickback in stunning high-quality digital format, with a specially-designed user interface that gives the reader smooth swiping from page to page, flawless pixel-per-second movement, and effortless transition to Panel Mode to view enlarged panels one by one in beautiful detail.

Special features include:

• Audio commentary for selected pages, recorded by David Lloyd exclusively for this app

• A host of extra material including a selection of previously unpublished sketches, thumbnails, and cover roughs from the development of Kickback

• A brand-new interview with David Lloyd conducted exclusively for this app

• Visual contents and bookmarks that let the reader view thumbnails of all pages and navigate quickly and easily

 

 

David Lloyd's 'Kickback' set for digital release

Digital publisher Panel Nine will be releasing its second deluxe graphic novel in March for the iPad: Kickback by V for Vendetta co-creator David Lloyd.


First published in 2005 in French by Carabas and in English in 2006 by Dark Horse, Kickback is about a corrupt detective in a corrupt force and how and why he decides to change direction. 

"He's a tough cop, but in all other aspects a regular guy," David Lloyd explained in an interview for downthetubes in 2006, "and he's corrupt because everyone else around him is on the take. He's just going down the same road as everyone else because it's easier to do that than face up to his moral responsibilities. 
 

"It's something we all do in life, I'm sorry to say - in little ways or big ways. If we didn't, we'd have a much better world to live in."

The app has the full graphic novel as previously released by Dark Horse but supplements it with a host of unseen extras, including production sketches, thumbnails and cover roughs.

"There's also an explosive interview with David Lloyd exclusive to the app, in which he has some choice words on the comics industry and one publisher in particular," publisher Russell Willis tells us.

"As a special extra Lloyd has provided page-by-page commentaries on each page of Kickback -- providing a masterclass in the making a graphic novel."


Headquartered in Tokyo, Panel Nine publishes graphic novels exclusively for the iPad and has two lines: one which publishes some of the best comics work already existing as deluxe digital graphic novels for the iPad - they released Eddie Campbell's Dapper John last year -- and another which will publish new work that is created with the iPad in mind from the beginning.

• Panel Nine official site: www.panelnine.com

• Read our 2006 interview with David Lloyd about Kickback


• Read David Lloyd's Kickback pages on his own official web site

Absolute V for Vendetta Previewed

Top comics artist David Lloyd, creator of Kickback, has been sharing some of the newly-coloured 'bridging pages' for the upcoming Absolute V For Vendetta, due for release in August.

"For those of you who are only familiar with V in its collected form as a paperback or hardback, or in the various versions of it which have been published around the world, the bridging pages were full-page illustrations which I created for the original issues," David explains via his web site, "in order to link together the separate chapters of the story, and sometimes lead into and out of the issues.

"For the purpose of printing economics, all of the individual issues had to have a specific page-count, but the interiors of the issues couldn't be completely filled with reprint story material without breaking the chapters up. Blank pages were not an option of course, and we didn't want any advertising filling these blanks and marring the atmosphere of the story - so the concept of using bridging pages arose.

"My intention with them was never to use them to add meaning that wasn't intended to the end of a chapter if they followed one, or to it's beginning if the pages preceded a chapter," David continues. "My purpose at all times was for them to complement the action and not distort it. Within those boundaries I had a very enjoyable and creative time, and produced some illustration work I'm proud of."

However, David notes a caveat to the original version of the work. "At the time this work was done, there was no budget available to pay for these illustrations to be fully coloured and little time to do it anyway, so they were all simply tinted with an overall tone of any colour I considered appropriate for the atmosphere of the chapters they were attached to," he reveals. "But for the Absolute edition, I was offered the opportunity to fully colour all these pages, and I gladly took it.

"Over 50 of these full-page illustrations are now in full color, and have been colored using the same palette that V's colourists - Siobhan Dodds and Steve Whitaker - used in the individual chapters they worked on, to homage their contribution and join theirs in its tone. Siobhan and Steve used watercolour and colored inks respectively for their work, but I used coloured pencils, manipulated in Photoshop, in a repetition of the technique I applied to the colour of my graphic novel, Kickback. It worked well in maintaining the look of the original colour work.

"This new colour is part of a great package in the Absolute Vendetta," David enthuses, "which will look very much like a perfect binder of all the original issues of the serial, reprinting for the first time absolutely all of the art they contained, and more of the preparatory art that went into all the issues."

Recently, David also explains he wants to clear up a misconception that many V for Vendetta may be suffering from over how V came to be published in colour after its long run in the British comics magazine, Warrior in black and white, "a form that many admirers of the graphic novel still have a great fondness for," he acknowledges.

"This didn't happen because DC Comics insisted on it as part of the deal of reprinting and continuing the serial, as many may imagine," David explains. "DC's Executive Editor at the time, Dick Giordano, asked me if I wanted it to be reprinted in black and white and kept in black and white for future issues. I said I didn't, because I knew that the widest readership could only be accessed through publishing it in full colour.

"This was not a decision I made because of a blinkered interest in the greater financial rewards of gaining the widest readership," David insists. "It was because I wanted the work and its message to spread as far as it could possibly go.

"In my view, what had prompted Dick to offer me that choice between colour and black and white from the high position he occupied in a company which was built on colour comics, was the remarkable success of some of the b/w indie books of the time, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which sold massively despite being in monotone. I thought then that this development in comic-reader habits was a detour, not a new highway, and I was convinced that Vendetta could be coloured appropriately and effectively in its new incarnation.

"Printing didn't always do its best in representing the skill that Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds - V's major colourists - applied to the work, but that's another long story," David adds. "For those interested, I can tell you that the definitive colour balances in V were applied to the hardback version of the collection in 2006 and are now also seen in the latest softcovers. And, of course, they will appear in the Absolute edition."

• Absolute V for Vendetta will be released in August 2009. View more previews on www.lforlloyd.com

• Read our 2006 interview with David about his Kickback project