More Alex Rider Comics

Good news for fans of Anthony Horowitz's teen spy series! Even though the first movie based on his bestselling books tanked at the U.S. box office (thanks mainly to a non-existent marketing campaign from The Weinstein Company), the series of graphic novel adaptations will continue. Why would there have even been a question of its not happening? Because the first one, Stormbreaker, was based on the movie Stormbreaker, not the book. (There were some key differences between the two.) Adapter Antony Johnson, no stranger to the world of spy comics (having written the only Queen & Country mini-series not penned by creator Greg Rucka), said in an interview last year that the second graphic novel, Point Blank, would be adapted from the novel and not the film. But then there was no sign of it. Amazon now lists a December 27 release date in America and England. Both countries are going with the far less clever American title, Point Blank, instead of the British Point Blanc. (It's a pun, see? "Point Blanc" is a French location in the book.)

I'm really glad that we'll see Point Blanc adapted into some visual medium. I haven't read all the Alex Rider books, but of the ones that I have, it's my favorite. I think it would actually make a much better movie than Stormbreaker, so I still hope we see one eventually. In the mean time, I'll happily take the comic. As Stormbreaker more or less followed the plot of Ian Fleming's Moonraker (the book, mind you, not the film), Point Blanc is rather cavalierly adapted from the Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. James Bond himself, in his Alex Rider-inspired young incarnation (confused?), will star in a comic adaptation of the Charlie Higson's first Young Bond novel, Silverfin, next year. That graphic novel will be illustrated by Kev Walker.