Pilot Season: Murderer #1

[ENGLISH] Top Cow tells us: LOS ANGELES, Calif., October 14th, 2009 – Top Cow Productions, Inc. proudly announced today that Pilot Season 2009 will kick of with Pilot Season: Murderer #1. Due to arrive in comic books stores across the country on November 18, 2009, Pilot Season: Murderer #1 is 32 pages of moral torment in a character study spuriously conjured from the minds of Image Comics partners Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) and Top Cow founder Marc Silvestri (X-Men/Dark Avengers: Utopia, The Darkness).

Kirkman writes the story of Jason Sparks, a man cursed to spend every waking moment being bombarded by the thoughts of strangers around him. Every dirty little secret and every hidden desire screams out at him in a cacophony of voices in his head. The only way to silent these voices, the only thing that buys Jason a moment of respite… is murder. Up and coming artist Nelson Blake II (The Darkness, Broken Trinity: Witchblade) performs the artistic duties to flesh out the story of a man trying to use his powers for good. Pilot Season: Murderer #1 features a cover by co-creator Marc Silvestri and colorist Sunny Gho of IFS.

Pilot Season: Murderer #1 is priced at $2.99 as part of Top Cow’s ongoing initiative to maintain their price point at $2.99 throughout 2009 for all of their regular comic books. It is the first of five new concepts created by Kirkman and Silvestri especially for Pilot Season 2009.

Pilot Season has been an annual Top Cow tradition since 2007 that give fans the power to choose the next two Top Cow series based on a selection of one-shot Pilot Season “pilot” issues through online voting. The inaugural Pilot Season initiative garnered more than four million votes from fans across the globe.

ART ATTACHED: Pilot Season: Murderer #1 cover

Media contact:

Filip Sablik

Top Cow Productions, Inc.

(310) 282-8062

fsablik@topcowent.com

About Top Cow Productions Inc.

Top Cow Productions, Inc. (www.topcow.com), a Los Angeles-based entertainment company, was founded in December of 1992 by artist Marc Silvestri, who also co-founded Image Comics earlier that same year. Top Cow currently publishes its line of comic books in 21 languages in over 55 different countries. The company has launched 20 franchises (18 original and two licensed) in the industry’s Top 10, seven at #1, a feat accomplished by no other publisher in the last two decades. Its flagship franchise, WITCHBLADE, was TNT’s #1 original film of 2000 and the subsequent TV series was released on DVD on July 29, 2008. A feature film, co-produced by Platinum Studios, Inc. and Arclight Films, is slated to begin production in Australia with director Michael Rymer. WITCHBLADE is also the first American property to be fully adapted in Japan as an original anime and manga by Studio GONZO in 2006. Top Cow’s other flagship property, THE DARKNESS, was developed into a major next-generation video game release by Starbreeze and 2K Games and achieved platinum sales status. WANTED, an Eisner-nominated miniseries published by Top Cow from 2003-2005, is now a major motion picture from Universal Pictures starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. Virtually all of Top Cow’s other properties are in development as feature films, live-action television, animation or video games. Top Cow has also successfully licensed and merchandised its franchises into toys, statues, clothing, lithographs, puppets, posters, magnets, shot glasses, lighters, lunch pails, wall scrolls, mouse pads, die-cast cars, calendars, Christmas ornaments, Halloween masks, trading cards, standees, video games and roleplaying games.