0
Posted October 19, 2011 by Norby Ela in Comics
 
 

Millar and Gibbons Auctions Off ‘The Secret Service’ For Good Cause

Press Release

Mark Millar (Kick-Ass) and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), two of the biggest names in the global comic-book industry, have announced they are collaborating for the first time on a major new series, The Secret Service. Their book is released in February and was co-created with director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class). As with Kick-Ass, Nemesis and Superior, Mark is creating a unique opportunity for fans to bid for the right to name a major character in the series and all proceeds from the auction will go to a good cause in Scotland. Proceeds from the Kick-Ass auction, where lead character Dave Lizewski was named, paid for a play area in Rutherglen High for pupils with special needs. The proceeds from the more recent Nemesis and Superior auctions paid for half of a specially equipped mini-bus for the children. Rutherglen High’s Head Teacher, Jan Allan, said she was “delighted with the money raised and wanted to thank all Millarworld readers for their generosity.”

This latest auction is an opportunity to name the super-villain in The Secret Service. Matthew Vaughn’s MARV films now hold the movie rights to this project and naming the villain here will be at least as big a coup for fans as any of the auctions so far. The proceeds from the auction will go to the St Bartholomew’s Primary School Pantomime Fund, which Mark Millar has recently established with Head-Teacher Christine Boyle.

Mark explained, “I’m a former pupil at St Bartholomew’s and have so many great memories of the place. I know there’s not a lot of money in local government at the moment and I was sad to hear that the annual school trip for the children had been cancelled. By establishing this fund, I hope to have a pot the head-teacher can dip into every Christmas and take the entire school to a pantomime every year. This fund will cover tickets, transport and treats for the children and it’s something I’d like to help with every year from now on. The school trips were a big deal to us as little kids and I’d love to get them up and running again.”

Christine Boyle, Head Teacher at St Bartholomew’s, is delighted adding “Everyone in St Bartholomew’s is so grateful to Mark for his very generous gift. It is especially welcome as every single child will benefit and have a real treat to look forward to every year. This is really wonderful given the current financial constraints that the school and many families are experiencing at this time. Mark is remembered very fondly at St Bartholomew’s and he is a real inspiration to all our pupils to keep working hard to achieve their ambitions.”

[Editor’s Note: If you win, your name will be the name of the super-villain in THE SECRET SERVICE. Do you want to join the bid? CLICK HERE]

The Secret Service is a six issue series from Millarworld (Wanted, Kick-Ass, Nemesis and Superior) and will be hitting shelves in February 2012.  Details of the series will be released in January.

About Mark Millar
Award-winning writer Mark Millar revamped most of Marvel’s most famous characters in the last ten years, his graphic novel The Ultimates (with artist Bryan Hitch) cited by Time Magazine as Best of the Decade. Marvel Entertainment used their interpretation of The Avengers characters in many of their recent movies and fans are excited to see this continue in next year’s blockbuster movie.
While working at Marvel, he wrote the company’s biggest-selling series of the last decade and also started his own company, Millarworld, to own and control the rights to his co-creations. The first of these books was Wanted, which was turned into a movie starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in 2008. This was followed by Kick-Ass, which was adapted into a movie starring Nicolas Cage in 2010. Most recently, he sold the rights to his book Nemesis to Fox with legendary director Tony Scott attached as director. His upcoming book, Supercrooks, will be the first live-action Hollywood movie focusing on super-villains and has been described as Ocean’s 11 meets The X-Men. This is being helmed by Oscar nominated director Nacho Vigalondo. Wanted 2 has also just been green-lit and is currently being written by the original’s screen-writers, Brandt and Haas.
Mark is also the editor and co-publisher of Clint magazine, a news-stand publication in his native United Kingdom.

About Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons, born April 14th in 1949, has been playing a major role in the world of comics for over 30 years now. Dave has drawn and written for all the major publishers in North America and his home country Great Britain. His work has been and still is published all over the world. He has depicted the adventures of SUPERMAN, BATMAN, DR WHO, DAN DARE and GREEN LANTERN, amongst many others. He co-created the long running ROGUE TROOPER for 2000 A.D., where he also worked on HARLEM HEROES. In 1982, he began drawing the ‘Green Lantern’ series for a memorable run. Real big success came when he collaborated with Alan Moore on the famous ‘WATCHMEN’ for D.C. comics in 1986/87, for which he got a Hugo award. Among his other works are the continuing, award-winning saga of MARTHA WASHINGTON, with Frank Miller, writing ‘BATMAN VERSUS PREDATOR’, and ‘WORLD’S FINEST’ featuring Superman and Batman, and collaborated with Stan Lee on DC’s JUST IMAGINE series with GREEN LANTERN. Recently he released his on graphic novel THE ORIGINALS, wrote the GREEN LANTERN CORPS re-launch and provided covers to ACTION COMICS. He has also done work with electronic media designing the world and characters used in the game ‘BENEATH A STEEL SKY’.


Norby Ela

 
Now residing in San Diego, CA, I strive to work in art and further grow FlipGeeks around the world.