It is perhaps Philip K Dick’s most popular works and this summer Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep will be given the full graphic treatment by BOOM! Studios. If that title isn’t familiar to you, then perhaps you’ve seen or heard of the movie it inspired: Blade Runner.
But this isn’t some half summarized adaptation of PKD’s Androids. BOOM! promises that the actual text of the novel will appear beside the panels. Meaning that PKD’s title will remain a product and vision of his mind. Previews World has this title listing as being available in June of this year.
From BOOM! Studios:
THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE FILM BLADE RUNNER COMES TO BOOM with backmatter by Warren Ellis! Worldwide best-selling sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s award-winning DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? has been called “a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today” and served as the basis for the film BLADE RUNNER. BOOM! Studios is honored to present the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, ground-breaking 24-issue maxi-series experiment! [Read the full announcement here]
Not familiar with the story? Here’s your summary in a nutshell: It’s 2021 and a massive World War has decimated the population of Earth, all but wiping it out and driving many of those who survived to life on colonized Mars. But not everyone left and those who stayed suddenly found themselves living on a desolate planet. To compensate for low population numbers across all species and in an attempt to rebuild life-as-they-knew-it as quickly as possible, realistic androids are created. They are indistinguishable from real people or animals and, for fear that they could wreck havoc on the population, are eventually banned from Earth.
But not every android identifies themselves. Some hide amongst the population. For those rogue ‘droids, there are officially sanctioned bounty hunters, like Rick Deckard. Rick’s job is to hunt down and deactivate the androids hiding among the people. It’s a tough job because unlike their human counterparts, androids don’t break quite so easy.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a fantastic book filled with more questions than answers. I'm holding out hope that, by keeping the original text with the adapted story, the same will hold true of the comics. If that happens, and BOOM! Studios is certainly capable of making it so, then we could be looking at a new classic title in science fiction comics.
Fitting really, when you consider its source.
Check out the proposed art for Issue 1's covers:
Wanna give Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep a sneak peek (the novel, not the forthcoming comic)? It's a quick peek, admittedly, containing an introduction explaining a little about what makes PKD so damned good followed by about the first 6 pages of chapter one and then the first page of a few of the subsequent chapters; but it's better than nothing.
Still, I urge you to find a copy of this book - I don't care how: online, bookstore, library, friends & family - and read it. This is the book that opened me up to the world of Philip K. Dick and if you haven't been there, and you enjoy good fiction that asks you to do a little thinking, then it's time you discovered that world as well. You'll be so glad that you did!
This book and movie seem to be haunting me. IT was required reading in college for my Literature and Society class. Awesome book! Awesome movie too. I loved Harrison Ford in it.
It was perhaps my favorite book to read that semester with the exception off the Sweet Forever or what ever it was called. I loved much better than Fight Club. I wouldn't mind a copy of this book for myself. The gray covered book is the one I read. I wonder if there are any plans to re-make the movie. Imagine what it would be like with today's computer graphics.
Great Post Kyle. :)