Back in 2011, a transmedia project called Rubicon was revealed as a contemporary reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Set in war torn Afghanistan, the story would follow five US Navy SEAL operators defending a remote farming village from Taliban attacks.
Aiming to explore the nature of war, the plans are to put the story out in three different media: a movie, a graphic novel, and a video game. The three are being created simultaneously, with the individual releases following different storylines and complementing one another.
It now appears that the first of the planned releases is scheduled for July 9, with the publication of a 136 page comic book simply titled Rubicon. The book is based on a story by Oscar winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Wolverine) and co-written by graphic novelist Mark Long (The Silence of Our Friends, Shrapnel) and Dan Capel.
Some art can be seen on the project’s Tumblr page, while basic information can also be found on publisher Archaia’s website. In addition to a traditional paper publication, there is talk about distributing the graphic novel digitally, but no specific details yet seem to be available, and the publisher has not responded to my inquiry for more information.
The publication date for this appears to have been moved to August.