Duncan Jones’ MADI Comes to Life as a Comic Book

If you were on Twitter a year ago, you may have seen director Duncan Jones running a poll about comics creators. The seemingly innocuous post became a graphic novel, Madi: Once Upon A Time In The Future. The project is currently demolishing its goals on Kickstarter. We chatted to Jones and his collaborator de Campi about the book as well as getting a glimpse at two exclusive pages from the comic by the incredible James Stokoe.

So what is Madi about? 

“A team of British ex-special forces had technology incorporated into their bodies during their years of service, but the government won’t pay for its upkeep so they now have to work in the private sector doing corporate ‘hostile takeover,’ ‘aggressive expansion,’ and ‘patent protection’ work on behalf of the company. Problem is, the more missions they do, the more they get injured and damaged, and the deeper they are falling into debt… Our lead, Madi, has had enough, and decides to take a job off the books,” - Jones

The creative team is a who’s who of incredible artists including; Simon Bisley, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, Tonci Zonjic, Pia Guerra, James Stokoe, RM Guéra, Chris Weston, Rufus Dayglo, Annie Wu, and more. For Jones, it was a dream come true. “It’s mind blowing,” Jones said. “I have always been a comic fan–I’m British–so yes, but from a 2000 AD, Eagle magazine, Tiger, Commando comics perspective primarily… most Americans may not even have heard of those. There are a lot of artists working on this I have fawned over in 2000 AD for years. It’s hugely exciting to see their interpretation of what Alex and I have written.”

The collaboration between Jones and writer/editor/letterer Alex de Campi started after Twitter recommended her as a potential name to help Jones adapt a screenplay into a comic. “It’s been a wild and very compressed ride; we will have put this book out in 18 months,” de Campi explained. “Duncan’s been an amazing, fun, insightful, and smart collaborator, and together we made a book with some artist friends. That’s the very, very short version.”