Idea IS the format

Seems the universe of The Walking Dead is already expanding, even before the imminent premiere of AMC’s much-anticipated TV series.  Deadline reports that:

Robert Kirkman’s bestselling comic series The Walking Dead [...] will now spawn a trilogy of original novels to be published by Thomas Dunne books, an imprint of St. Martins Press, starting in 2011. The books will be conceptualized and outlined by Kirkman before being developed by  horror novelist Jay Bonansinga (Perfect Victim). The books’ plots will take place in the “universe” or context established by Kirkman’s comic series, which is currently in its 77^th issue and has sold approximately three million copies worldwide.

As if it wasn’t happy enough news that someone had the good sense to turn this into a TV mini-series in the first place, now we find out that someone, perhaps that very same someone, has spotted the inordinate transmedia storytelling potential as well. 

With a bit of luck next in the pipeline is a sprawling, browser-based, multi-player Unity game, pitched somewhere between Left For Dead, Dead Rising and Red Dead Redemption, inviting each of us to carve our own path in a universe where zombies are a dime a dozen, and its the survivors you really have to look out for.

Sizemore Ollie Relph and I are off to see Inception at Stratford East Picturehouse this evening. Fuck knows how they managed to secure a members-only preview two days ahead of release, but that alone was worth the (eminently reasonable) price of an annual membership.

As regular readers will be aware, this is probably my most eagerly awaited movies of 2010. I’ve been dodging spoilers left, right and centre, but also trying to keep a close eye on what I’ve already called out as one of the year’s best movie marketing campaigns.

So, with just a few hours to go, this is exactly the kind of thing I want to find online – a comic book prologue called The Cobol Job. (Anyone reading this on an iPad struggling to access the flash version of the comic can download all 25MB of PDF version here.)

It’s pretty timely really, given that the guys over at BBH have just posted the first of three installments of a conversation we had a couple of months back about all things transmedia.

BBH’s Mel Exon and Ben Shaw are both in the enviable position of having the mandate and the resources to really get to grips with this space, so I imagine they will be as interested as anyone to see that our first vaguely coherent glimpse of Inception comes in the form of a digital comic, exploring a strand of storyline which seems to lead seamlessly into the events of the film.

This is by no means the first time this kind of thing has been done – Warner Bros gave us a 3-part ‘digital graphic novel’ to tease us obliquely into the disease-ravaged world of I Am Legend, and there are numerous other examples of transmedia prologues and branching narratives delivered ahead of release.

I guess I just like the fact that, as will all things about the Inception campaign, this shows an acute understanding that less is more. And that timing is everything.

Because this is how a movie fan ought to feel six hours ahead of taking their seat in a cinema. Intrigued. Excited. Ready for a ride on the ultimate ghost train, into the inviting darkness of a world dreamed up by maybe the most exciting big money director plying his trade today.

See you on the other side.