One graphic novel you'll have a hard time finding in stores is the recent release of Warren Ellis and D'Israeli's new graphic novella SVK. The graphic novel is about a futuristic surveillance state — comes with a black light reader to read dialogue printed in invisible ink. According to the publisher, "SVK is a modern detective story, one that Ellis describes as 'Franz Kafka's Bourne Identity.' " You can order it direct from the publisher , but be advised that it's not super-cheap to ship out of England. SVK is out right now.
Berg CEO Matt Webb on the plot:
The noir tale follows a detective who must retrieve a technology called SVK (Special Viewing Kit). When the sleuth discovers its telepathic functions, the reader learns how to brain-snoop too. "You use the torch to unlock another player of the story," says Matt Jones, 38, a principal designer at BERG. "A bit like how life works," adds Matt Webb, the firm's 33-year-old CEO. "Everyone's talked to a person at a party and then someone tells you something about them. Next time, you see them through that lens."
From Ellis' website:
SVK is a 40-page comic book available via mail order only.
SVK is an experimental publication, conceived of and produced by the design and invention group BERG.
They came to me with the idea and asked me to help them make it work. I drafted in my old friend Matt Brooker, better known to a legion of comics readers as the artist D’Israeli, to illustrate it and help me solve it.
SVK comes packaged with a UV torch. Because a lot of it is printed in invisible UV ink, and therefore elements of the book can only be seen by shining the torch on the pages.
Why is it only mail order? Because BERG wanted to solve their own supply chain. They want to make more things and sell them themselves. SVK is a test article for that process. They’re publishing it: they decide how to distribute it.
Why is it expensive? It’s a short print run, printed in UV ink that they had to pass security tests in order to get their hands on, enclosed with a UV torch with custom printing, and wrapped in custom packaging. This isn’t a standard comic.
SVK comes with a foreword by William Gibson, and articles by futures expert Jamais Cascio and comics historian Paul Gravett.
SVK was the hardest thing I’ve written in years. I think it’s also the best thing I’ve written in a few years. And, without offense to my other collaborators, I’ve known and worked with Matt for twenty years, and that means that not only does stuff appear on the page exactly as I imagined it would, but that it’ll also be better than I imagined it.
At some point, once the book’s circulated a bit, I’ll talk about the horrible technical difficulties Matt solved without breaking step. Suffice it to say that this book very probably would not have happened at all if Matt Brooker had not been onboard.
And, finally, I need to thank the whole BERG team, who have worked like demons on SVK. The book itself is only the iceberg tip of the machine they’ve had to build to make this work.
Call me crazy but I think this may turn into a cult collection item. Rumor has it that only a few thousand [possibly hundred] will be sold so if you plan on buying a copy, act fast. If anyone of you CBM'ers buys the book, please share with the rest of us and let us know if the purchase was worth it.
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