Robert Venditti is already one of the busier writers in mainstream comics -- at DC Comics, he's writing "Green Lantern" and co-writing "The Flash" with Van Jensen, and he's been Valiant Entertainment's "X-O Manowar" scribe since that company relaunched in 2012. Next year, he's expanding his reach to prose with a new line of original, middle-grade novels (aimed at readers age 9 to 12) dubbed "Miles Taylor and the Golden Cape." The first in the series, "Attack of the Alien Horde," is scheduled for debut in June 2015.
The novel is something of a hybrid between prose and comics, with 65 of its 320 pages featuring art by Dusty Higgins, who illustrated the Van Jensen-written "Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer" series. Higgins also illustrated the book's freshly unveiled cover, seen below.
Though "Miles Taylor" is Venditti's first novel, he's got experience with material aimed at this audience, having adapted several of Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" books as graphic novels. Venditti told CBR this past April at WonderCon in Anaheim that prose writing was his original career track, before finding success with comics work like "The Surrogates" at Top Shelf Productions.
"Actually, I started out doing prose," Venditti said. "That's what I originally went to school for. I didn't start reading comics until my mid-20s and so I was gonna be a prose writer. I got my master's in creative writing, and so it's a style of writing that I always wanted to do, but I just never really, I felt, had the idea that would be good for a novel until this came along."
Courtesy of publisher Simon & Schuster, here's the official description of the book's plot:
Put on the golden cape.
Check
Transform into Gilded.
Check
Save the world.
Working on it.
Survive the seventh grade.
Umm...not a chance.
When twelve-year-old Miles Taylor unexpectedly inherits a golden cape that gives him superpowers, he finds himself thrust into the role of real-life superhero. With some help from a new friend named Henry, Miles does his best to protect his city. But his skills and courage are about to be put to the ultimate test-an alien horde is working its way toward Earth, with their sights set on the golden cape...and total domination.
Ready or not, Miles is about to discover whether he has what it takes to save all humankind.
"Miles Taylor and the Golden Cape: Attack of the Alien Horde" is scheduled for release on June 16, 2015. A second book in the series is scheduled for summer 2016.