'Eclipse' Comic Being Developed for TV by Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment

Ahead of the series' ninth issue, Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment has optioned the Image [...]

Ahead of the series' ninth issue, Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment has optioned the Image Comics series Eclipse for TV.

An interesting wrinkle here is that Skybound is not the publisher of Eclipse, which is a Top Cow series. Dating back to the founding of Image, each of the partners has their own studio, each operating independently but cooperatively under the Image Comics banner. Image itself owns no intellecutal property except for the company name and logo, and has only a skeleton crew of staff.

"Eclipse is a story that mixes post-apocalyptic and dystopian into a thrilling big world action drama, and explores the human condition while asking the question what if our life-giving sun turned on us." said Kaplan. "It's my first comic series, it's a passion project, and I'm so grateful to Top Cow's Matt Hawkins and Marc Silvestri for believing in this great comic from the start, and I'm thrilled to see it developed by the best home in the business to marry comics with TV, and that's Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment."

According to the original solicitation text for the first issue (released in late 2016), Eclipse centers on a world where, in the near future, a mysterious solar event has transformed the sun's light into deadly immolating rays. The world's few survivors now live in nocturnal cities. But a killer emerges who uses sunlight to burn his victims, and when he targets the daughter of a solar power mogul, it falls to a disillusioned solar engineer to protect her.

Deadline reports that Top Cow's Marc Silvestri and Matt Hawkins will executive produce alongside Skybound Entertainment. The comic's writer and credited creator, Zack Kaplan, will be a co-executive producer on the project.

The comic is drawn by Giovanni Timpano, who is apparently not credited as a co-creator. While failing to credit the artist in creation is uncommon in comics, it is not unheard-of. Well-documented examples include Bob Kane's Batman credit and Tony Isabella's Black Lightning (both of which have had artists appended in later years) as well as Kirkman's own The Walking Dead. The decision to leave original series artist Tony Moore off of The Walking Dead's credits has had years of ramificiations, including more than one lawsuit between Moore and Kirkman.

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